Diary of an Enlisted Man Part 31

_Sunday._ Colonel Bostwick sent all hands out to look up recruits and we are to make that our business from this on. We are to report every night what success we meet with. Not one of us got a recruit, but we all got a lecture.

_March 28, 1864._

_Monday._ Colonel B. didn't like the house we were in, and we all moved into another that he liked better. Moving day at home used to be a busy one, and so were several days before and after, but we have improved on the old order of doing such things. We just pick up what belongs to us, walk out of the old house into the new one and throw them down--and the job is done.

Lieutenant Bell and I were set at making out reports, and we managed to smuggle in a letter or two apiece. After that, Sergeant House from Company B came in and we all walked up the river as far as the Falls, as the rapids are here called. It was very interesting to watch the ironclads feel their way over the rocks into the deeper water above. The hospital boat, the Woodford, hit a rock and sprung a leak. She was run ash.o.r.e on the opposite side and the gang plank run out. From the way the sick people hurried off I don't think they were very badly off. The boat began to settle down, as if the damage was serious.

_March 29, 1864._

_Tuesday._ Was detailed for officer of the guard, and was in camp all day. There are men coming in every day that have escaped the conscript-officers and have been living in the woods like wild beasts.

They opposed secession and would not serve in the secession army. Many of them are owners of property in this place, but they left their homes and their families and herded together for protection against small bands of pursuers, scattering again when a larger force was sent after them. Now that the coast is clear, they offer to act as scouts or to fight in the ranks for the Union cause. Nearly enough for a regiment have reported. They are well armed and are ready to use their guns against the common enemy. They are not the poor whites, who are as ignorant as the blacks, but are intelligent men, and the stories they tell of the wrongs they have suffered and the sufferings they have endured have made my blood boil with sympathy for them. They swear Alexandria shall never again be in possession of their enemies, for they will burn it to the ground before that happens. They call themselves "Jay-hawkers" and seem proud of the name. It seems wicked to doubt their sincerity, and yet I can't help thinking what a slick trick it would be for the Rebels to cut these men loose from their army and send them among us with just such a story as they tell. Now and then one could slip away and not be missed as regular enlisted soldiers would, and so every plan and every move we make be carried straight to them.

Rumor says Colonel Bostwick has been detailed at headquarters; and Lieutenant Colonel Parker has been appointed superintendent of recruiting service in this department.

_March 30, 1864._

_Wednesday._ New orders already. Major Palon, with Lieutenants Bell, Dillon and Van Alstyne, is to go to Natchitoches for recruits. The Jay-hawkers say every one of the recruiting squad is known by name to General Mouton, and that he also has a pretty good description of each one. He has had this ever since we camped on his plantation last fall.

If any are captured we are to be tried by the civil authorities for "n.i.g.g.e.r stealing," the penalty for which is death. How General Mouton got all this information the Jay-hawkers say they don't know, but if what I have been mean enough to hint at should be true, then it all becomes plain. It seems to me they should be watched until they prove their sincerity by their works. We begin to think we are somebody after all, to be mentioned in general orders, even if it is only to advertise us as "n.i.g.g.e.r-stealers."

We boarded the steamer Jennie Rogers at noon. I tried to get Tony to stay back, telling him the Jay-hawker story and that if he was caught in our company his fate would be as bad or worse than ours. At first he decided to stay, but as we were going on board he changed his mind and would go, saying, "If the Rebels get you, then I'm going to die wid you." We ran up to the rapids and stopped. The gunboat Ozart had got fast in the mud by going too close to the opposite bank. A big rope was run across the river to a tree and made fast, and the machinery on the Ozart went to winding up on it, thinking to pull herself loose. Next, another rope was tied to the middle of the big one, and a tugboat began pulling on it, the Ozart all the time winding up the slack. The big rope, or hawser as they call it, was finally pulled high enough so the tug could go under it, and then it went up-stream as far as the rope would let it, and then, with a full head of steam, came down under it, fetching up with a tremendous yank on the hawser, which made the water fly from it in all directions. This was done several times, but the Ozart was still there. Then a tree was cut and one end brought on board, the other resting against the bank. In some way, tackles were rigged so that the tree was made to push, and the tug giving one more pull, the Ozart came loose from the bank and seemed none the worse for the tugging she had had. The line across the river was then taken in and the Jennie Rogers went on for ten or a dozen miles and tied up for the night.

_March 31, 1864._

_Thursday._ We started at daybreak and had gone perhaps twenty miles, when we overtook General Smith's army, which was stopping every boat that came along, until enough were had to carry his army. We tied up and I went ash.o.r.e and mixed up with the western soldiers to see how they differed from the eastern troops. They are larger men on the average, and more on the rough and ready order than ours, but on the whole I liked them first-rate. They were at Vicksburg, and if they told the truth about the siege of Vicksburg, we of Port Hudson hardly know what war is like. As I could not match their stories, I told none, more than to give an outline of the siege, which they thought must have been pretty tame.

From an old man, a native, I was told an interesting story about a hill that is in sight. He said it is called "The Hill of Death," so named by the Indians, who fought a Kilkenny-cat battle there until all were killed but a few women and children. It is not much of a hill, not more than half as big as Bryan's "Sugar Loaf," but otherwise much like it.

Boats kept coming and tying up. Those that came later brought news of the capture and destruction of the Lacrosse, just below Fort Derussey yesterday. Also that the Mattie Stevens was fired on and her pilot killed. Sim Bryan, our mail carrier, was on the Mattie, and if the Rebs got Sim and the letters he carried they know what our opinion of them is.

_April 1, 1864._

_Friday._ Moving day at home. Our folks will get into their new home to-day, and I wish I was there to help settle them down in it. It will be their first move without me since I was big enough to help.

I slept late this morning, till long after breakfast, and then, having nothing to get up for, lay and dozed until dinner time. Tony had my clothes brushed and my boots blacked and felt much worse than I did because I had lost my breakfast. I told him I would make it up for dinner, and I did. The river is full of boats now.

_April 2, 1864._

_Sat.u.r.day._ About noon General Smith and staff went on board the Clarabelle and at 2 P. M. we started up the creek. A copy of the code of signals that are to govern us was sent to each vessel. The river is so narrow we must go Indian file, and are to keep 400 yards from each other. One long whistle while tied up means "Get under way." One long whistle while under way means "Tie up." Three short whistles, "Close order." Four short whistles, "Open order." Five short whistles, "I wish to communicate." One gun from the flags.h.i.+p, "The enemy is in sight." Two short whistles and a long one, "I want a.s.sistance." Three short whistles and a long one, "The enemy has a battery." Four short whistles and a long one, "The troops will land." One gun and a long whistle, "All right." We got under way and everything went well until dark when, in rounding a short turn in the pesky little rivulet, another boat b.u.mped into ours and stove a hole in below the water line. The Jennie was pointed for sh.o.r.e and by the time she struck there, there was such a panic among the Vicksburg heroes as I don't believe eastern men ever thought of. At any rate none of our party so much as thought of joining in. They rushed for the side and began jumping from the upper and lower deck at the same time, landing on each other and some of them in the water, and then began quarreling and fighting over the hurts they had got. The rush to one side tipped the hole out of water, and as soon as the men could be got on the boat again it was held in that position until the damage was repaired. The whole thing was amusing from our point of view, and after a good laugh over it we went to bed.

_April 3, 1864._

_Sunday._ The leak was stopped and the water pumped out, and at 4 A. M.

we took our place in the line and went on. An idea of the number of boats is had from the fact that they had been pa.s.sing all the time this was going on, and the end was not in sight when we started again.

At noon we stopped for wood, and to relieve the neighbors of their surplus chickens. The western men are all right on a chicken raid, for I don't think one escaped them. At 6 P. M. we were under way again, but the Jennie ran onto a sand bar soon after and it took a lot of puffing and blowing to get loose from it, and to catch up and take our proper distance again. This makes thirty out of the last thirty-eight days I have been afloat. One in New Orleans, four at Port Hudson, and three at Alexandria, is all the time I have been ash.o.r.e. At that rate I will soon be a sailor.

_April 4, 1864._

GRAND ECORE. LA. _Monday._ We reached Grand Ecore some time in the night without further mishap and found ourselves tied fast to a tree on the bank when we awoke this morning. About noon the Jennie untied and went a little above the town and made fast again. We did nothing but watch the unloading of the troops. About 10 P. M., just as we were about to turn in, an order came for us to report at once at Alexandria for further orders. We were told that the Luminary was to start at daylight, and Major Palon told me to see if I could verify the report. Between us and the Luminary was a creek, without a bridge or other visible means of crossing. Tony found a boat and we were soon on board the Luminary, where we found the report about her sailing at daylight was true. In the meantime, some one had taken our boat, and we had to go away along the bayou until we could hear the challenge of the picket guards before we could get across. We legged it down the opposite side, and in the darkness mistook the Hastings for the Jennie Rogers. From her we got our bearings and were soon on board the Jennie and reported. The Jennie had a small boat, the Little Jennie, and with this we crossed the bayou and were soon on board the Luminary, only to find that since I was there her orders had been changed and she was to go up the river instead of down.

By this time it was almost morning and we went back to the Jennie Rogers and to bed. I had had exercise enough to make me ready to sleep almost anywhere, and I was soon sound asleep.

_April 5, 1864._

_Tuesday._ We were glad we left the Luminary, for she ran into a nest of Johnnies, who fired on her and killed six men. Heavy firing was heard in front and skirmish firing much nearer. Smith's troops had gone in that direction and had probably met some opposition. I went ash.o.r.e and fell in with an old resident who told me that Grand Ecore proper lies four miles back in the country now, though it was once right on the river bank. It being on the inside of a bend, the water kept was.h.i.+ng the earth from one side and leaving it on the other, until now the village and river are four miles apart. At every time of high water the river moves on a little farther, leaving a strip of new made ground on which young cottonwood trees immediately sprout up. This makes the top look like a great green stairway, the first step of which was made by the last freshet, the next by the freshet before, and so on to the top.

The firing grew nearer and there was more of it. By ten o'clock it was plain that hot fighting was going on, and not very far away. The dense growth of cottonwoods cut our view down in that direction to a little strip along the river, and out of this wounded men and small parties of prisoners began to come. By noon it seemed as if the whole of Smith's army was coming back and coming in a hurry, too. Batteries from below were rushed up and planted in the young cottonwoods right in front of us. Artillery horses, with their traces cut, came out by the dozen, and there was everything to show that a part or the whole of Smith's army was retreating. Soon the woods were alive with choppers, and the trees began to fall. In a time so short I hardly dare tell it the road and a strip each side of it was uncovered for at least a mile. How men could live where trees fell as they did there is a miracle. All the time men, horses and mules kept coming by the hundreds, and maybe thousands. Boats began loading with them. Forty-seven were put on our boat, three of them commissioned officers. A guard of negro soldiers was on the boat and the idea of being put under them made them howl with rage. Such swearing as one captain did would be hard to beat anywhere. The trouble in front began to quiet down. Not a shot had come our way, and not one had been fired in that direction. Whatever had happened was too far away for us to more than guess at. But it was plain that General A. J. Smith had run afoul of something that was a match for him, and what we were looking at was a genuine retreat. From the way boats were loading up and moving down-stream it looked as if the "n.i.g.g.e.r-stealers" were to have plenty of company on the way to Alexandria. From an artillery sergeant who was not so scared but that he could tell what had happened I found out this much. That the road ran through the woods for a long way and finally went diagonally across a large cleared s.p.a.ce and into the woods beyond. That they were not molested until, while crossing this opening, they were fired upon and a panic was the result. The road was full and reinforcements could not get at them from either direction, and they cut loose and ran for it. The infantry caught some of the bolder of the enemy and brought them in. They could not stop the retreat. They had to get out of the way or get run over by the crazy men and horses that filled the narrow road.

One of the prisoners is a Captain Todd. He was quite willing to talk. He said he was a cousin to President Lincoln's wife, and that he should now take the amnesty oath and try to get a job as clerk in some department.

Captain Faulkner, another prisoner, is as full of venom as a rattlesnake. He brags of what he has done and tells of what he will yet do. If he carries out his present intentions we had better skip for the north before he gets loose. He said he led the force that riddled the Black Hawk at Morgan's Bend, and I think he told the truth, for the pilot on the Black Hawk at that time is now pilot on this boat. They knew each other at sight. Captain Faulkner said, "Captain Frayer, I had four shots at you at Morgan's Bend, and all I ask for is one more."

The main force is somewhere in advance, but a good bunch of the rear guard is here. Everyone is blaming everyone else for what happened, and I expect all hands are ashamed of it now. When General Smith gets at them I expect they will feel worse yet.

Captain Faulkner's horse came in with others, and as soon as the captain saw him he begged to have him taken on board. He called him up close to the boat by whistling through his fingers. The coming of his horse changed the captain wonderfully. If he hated us, he certainly loved his horse. I felt sorry for him and told him so. He asked me to take off his saddle and bridle and perhaps he would find his way home. I stripped him and found a bullet had grazed his back and the flies were already at work. The saddle had also galled him. More out of pity for the horse than the captain, I took him to the river and washed his sore back clean, and at the captain's suggestion got some bacon fat from the steward and rubbed it well in. The captain said that would stop the flies. He was very grateful and told me all about the horse, how intelligent he was and how he hated to leave him. Said he never needed training, for he knew more than most people. He had raised him from a colt and no other white man had ever handled him as much as I had just done. Among the soldiers I found one that was a fellow pa.s.senger on the McClellan, and that brought up the subject of the rough pa.s.sage and the rougher pa.s.sengers. He said the ones I had arrested were tried and sent to the Dry Tortugas, which is an island in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida coast.

_April 6, 1864._

_Wednesday._ Captain Faulkner was up before I, and had called up his horse. The pony, for he was nothing else, tried to get up the gang plank, and would have come on board if the guard had not driven him back. I wished I could see them together. I had never seen so much affection shown by a horse, and I felt almost as bad as the captain did to see them kept from each other. I gave him a good was.h.i.+ng with soap and water and another greasing with bacon fat. About seven o'clock the Jennie untied and went down the river about a mile, where she stopped for wood. The pony followed, and when the gang plank was run out he again tried to come on board. This was too much for me. I went to the captain and offered him the only five-dollar bill I had in the world to take him on. But it was of no use. He resented my offering him money to disobey orders, and the door against the pony was closed. The last I saw of him he was running off across the country as if a new idea had struck him. But Captain Faulkner was most grateful to me, and I hope if the enemy ever gets hold of me Captain Faulkner will be among them, for he says he would just like a chance to get even with me for what I have done.

Another of the prisoners had been overseer on the plantation where we were taking on wood. His wife, with their little boy, came on board and pleaded for his release on parole. This, together with the pony affair, made the day a miserable one for me. Someway that sort of suffering hit me in a very tender spot. I could have seen the overseer and Captain Faulkner both shot and not have felt as badly as I did to think of that wife and child mourning for their husband and father, and the pony looking for his master, and perhaps falling into the hands of someone who would be cruel to him without ever knowing how near human he is. It is lucky for the government that I am not president, for such things as I have seen and heard to-day would tempt me to pardon Jeff Davis himself. When the wood was on board we started down the river for Alexandria, having done nothing more to earn our pay than to spend a few days as spectators of the stirring times at Grand Ecore. At a bend in the river by a woodyard an old darkey, mounted on an old gray mule, hailed us and said the Rebs were waiting for us in the woods about a mile below. A boat behind us had some guns on her forward deck, and began sh.e.l.ling the woods as soon as they came within reach, and we went past without a shot being fired at us. The river was lower than when we came up, and also narrower, in places not much wider than the length of the boat. At 11 P. M. we reached Alexandria and went to headquarters to report. We found the family all abed and asleep. A whiskey bottle standing on the table relieved us of any embarra.s.sment we might otherwise have felt for calling at so late an hour. We soon had them all out of bed to receive us in a manner more fitting to the occasion. Dr.

Warren got mad and used some improper language, for which he was soundly spanked and put to bed again. Thus ended our trip to Natchitoches, a place we never saw.

_April 7, 1864._

_Thursday._ There being nothing to hinder, I went to visit the 128th.

Found that Charlie Travis had died while we were away. He was one of the best of the lot, and Company B was feeling pretty sober over his sudden taking off. They were going to have chicken for dinner and I had to stay and help out. After that I came home and wrote a letter. The Polar Star came up with 500 prisoners on the way to the front to be exchanged. They were delighted at the prospect of a chance to fight us again. Those we brought down with us, on their way to prison, didn't seem to feel so happy.

_April 8, 1864._

_Friday._ While we were up the river the rest of the squad have enlisted over 300 men, and have gone in camp just out of town. Colonel Parker is in command. After breakfast I went to see them. Found Sol shaking yet; cold one day and hot the next. From his looks he has been real badly off. I visited them until noon and then went back to headquarters, where I found a lot of writing had been saved up for me. I wrote till night and then made Sol another visit, after which I came home and went to bed.

_April 9, 1864._

_Sat.u.r.day._ Orders for up the river again. The same four go, with Major Palon in command as before. Some way this trip smells stronger of danger than any we have taken. We have packed our trunks, keeping out an extra s.h.i.+rt apiece, and left the keys, with directions what to do with them in case we don't come back. At 1 P. M. we boarded the Laurel Hill, our old favorite, and set out. As we were turning about to get under way another boat almost touched us, and on it was Lieutenant Manning, with a bundle of letters in his hand for us. Was ever anything more tantalizing than that? To go off, not knowing for how long, with those letters almost in our hands, was worse than not seeing them at all. But there was no help for it and we went on, swallowing our disappointment as best we could.

We reached the rapids and got over them without mishap, and in a little while had tied up for the night. We sat on the deck and smoked, wondering if any of the letters were for us, after all, and when we would see them in case they were.