Brave Deeds of Union Soldiers Part 9

"Captain, come out to the tender with me and I'll show you a stunt that will save our lives if you will do just what I tell you."

The captain obeyed meekly while the wounded fireman stared at his friend under the impression that he was losing his mind under the strain. The engineer took one of the large oil-cans with a long nozzle and then wrapping his two brawny arms tightly around the captain's waist, lowered him as far as he could from the tender and directed him to pour the oil directly on each rail without wasting a drop or allowing a foot to go unoiled. It was hard in the dark to see the rail or to keep one's balance on the bounding engine, but the captain was a light weight and the engineer let him down as far back from the tender as he dared and held him there until one rail was thoroughly oiled. He repeated the operation on the other side and the two once more came back to the fireman who was clinging limply to the throttle.

"Now," said the engineer, "keep your eye open and you'll see some fun."

The front engine puffed more and more slowly up the grade and the pursuing engine seemed to gain on them at every yard. Already the men in the cab were commencing to aim their rifles for the last fatal volley. At this moment the front wheels of the pursuing engine reached the oiled track and in a minute her speed slackened, the wheels whirled round and round at a tremendous speed and there was a sudden rush and hiss of escaping steam. The engine in front suddenly drew away from her anch.o.r.ed pursuer. The engineer took a last long look at them through his field-gla.s.ses.

"It seems to me, captain," said he, "as if they are cussin'

considerable. Her old wheels are spinnin' like a squirrel-cage."

The engine dashed on more and more slowly, but there was no need for haste. In a few minutes a shot was fired in front of them and a sentry shouted for them to halt. They were within the picket lines of the Union Army. The engine was stopped and the three men staggered out holding tightly the precious dispatches which they carried in triplicate and in a few minutes more they were in the presence of General Stockton. A force was at once sent out and the Confederates and their locomotive were captured and within an hour thirty thousand men were on their way to relieve the beset Union forces.

The gauntlet had been run and General Thomas' army was saved.

CHAPTER XII

FORGOTTEN HEROES

"There was a little city and few men within it and there came a great king against it and besieged it and built great bulwarks against it.

Now there was found in it a poor wise man and he by his wisdom delivered the city, yet no man remembered that same poor man." Thus wrote the great Solomon, hearing of a deed, the tale of which had come down through the centuries. The doer of the deed had been long forgotten.

History is full of memories of brave deeds. The names of the men who did them have pa.s.sed away. The deeds live on forever. Like a fleck of radium each deed is indestructible. It may be covered with the dust and debris of uncounted years, but from it pulsates and streams forever a current of example and impulse which never can be hidden, never be forgotten, but which may flash out ages later, fighting with a mysterious, hidden inner strength against the powers of fear and of wrong.

The annals of the Civil War are full of records of forgotten doers of great deeds, humble, commonplace men and women who suddenly flashed out in some great effort of duty and perhaps were never heard of again.

Pray G.o.d that all of us when the time comes may burst if only for a moment into the fruition of accomplishment for which we were born and not wither away like the unprofitable fig-tree which only grew, but never bore fruit.

In 1862, the battle-hospitals were crowded with wounded and dying men.

The best surgeons of that day had not learned what every doctor knows now about the aseptic treatment of wounds and conducting of operations.

Accordingly too often even slight wounds gangrened and a terrible percentage of injured men died helplessly and hopelessly. In the fall of that year the hospitals at Jefferson were in a fearful condition.

Thousands and thousands of wounded and dying men were brought there for whom there were no beds. One poor fellow lay on the bare, wet boards, sick of a wasting fever. He was worn almost to a skeleton and on his poor, thin body were festering bed-sores which had come because there was no one who could give him proper attention. From his side he had seen five men one after the other brought in sick or wounded and carried away dead. One day an old black washerwoman named Hannah stopped in the ward to hunt up a doctor for whom she was to do some work. She saw this patient lying on his side on a dirty blanket spread out on the boards unwashed and filthy beyond all description with gaping sores showing on his wasted back. There he lay staring hopelessly at the body of a man who had recently died next to him and which the few overworked attendants had not had time to carry out to the dead-house. Old Hannah could not stand the sight. When she finally found the doctor she begged him to give her leave to take the man up and put him in her own bed.

"It's no use, Hannah," said the doctor kindly, "the poor chap is dying.

He will be gone to-morrow. I wish we could do something for him, but we can't and you can't."

Hannah could not sleep that night thinking of the sick man. Bright and early the next morning she came down and found him still alive. That settled it in her mind. Without asking any one's permission, she went out, looked up her two strapping sons and made them leave their work and bring her bed down to the hospital. It was covered with coa.r.s.e but clean linen sheets and she directed them while they lifted the sufferer on to the bed and carried him down to her shanty. There she cut away the filthy s.h.i.+rt which he wore and washed him like a baby with hot water. Then she settled down to nurse him back to life. Every half hour, night and day, she fed him spoonfuls of hot, nouris.h.i.+ng soup.

That and warm water and clean linen were the only medicines she used.

For a week she did nothing else but nurse her soldier. Several times he sank and once she thought him dead, but he always rallied and single-handed old Hannah fought back death and slowly nursed him back to health. Finally when he was well, he was given a furlough to go back to his home in Indiana. He tried to persuade Hannah to go back with him.

"No, honey," she said, "I'se got my was.h.i.+ng to do and besides I'm goin'

to try to adopt some more soldiers."

She went with him to the steamboat, fixed him in a deck chair, as he was still too feeble to walk, and kissed him good-bye and when she left the man broke down and cried. Old Hannah went back to her shanty and did the same thing again and again until she had nursed back to life no less than six Union soldiers. As she was not in active service, the government never recognized her work and even her last name was never known, but six men and their families and their friends have handed down the story of what a poor, old, black washerwoman could and did do for her country and for the sick and helpless.

The exploit of Lieutenant Blodgett and his orderly, Peter Basnett, was a brave deed of another kind. He had been sent by General Schofield during the engagement at Newtonia with orders to the colonel of the Fourth Missouri Cavalry. As the two rode around a point of woods, they suddenly found themselves facing forty Confederate soldiers drawn up in an irregular line not fifty yards away. There was no chance of escape, as they would be riddled with bullets at such a short range. Moreover neither the lieutenant nor his orderly thought well of surrendering.

Without an instant's hesitation they at once drew their revolvers and charging down upon the Confederates, shouted in loud, though rather shaky voices, "Surrender! Drop your arms! Surrender at once!" The line wavered, feeling that two men would not have the audacity to charge them unless they were followed by an overwhelming force. As they came right up to the lines, eight of the men in front threw down their muskets. The rest hesitated a minute and then turned and broke for the woods and the lieutenant and his orderly rode on and delivered eight prisoners along with their orders.

In the battle of Rappahannock Station, Colonel Edwards of the Fifth Maine showed the same nerve under similar circ.u.mstances. While his regiment were busy taking a whole brigade of captured Confederates to the rear, the colonel with a dozen of his men rode out into the darkness after more prisoners. Following the line of fortifications down toward the river, he suddenly came out in front of a long line of Confederate troops lying entrenched in rifle-pits. Like Lieutenant Blodgett, he decided to make a brave bluff rather than be shot down or spend weary years in a Confederate prison. Riding directly up to the nearest rifle-pit where a score of guns were leveled at him, he inquired for the officer who was in command of the Confederate forces.

"I command here," said the Confederate colonel, rising from the middle pit, "and who are you, sir?"

"My name is Colonel Edwards of the Fifth Maine, U.S.A.," replied the other, "and I call upon you to surrender your command at once."

The Confederate colonel hesitated.

"Let me confer with my officers first," he said.

"No, sir," said Colonel Edwards, "I can't give you a minute. Your forces on the right have been captured, your retreat is cut off and unless you surrender at once, I shall be compelled to order my regiment," pointing impressively to the whole horizon, "to attack you without further delay. I don't wish to cause any more loss of life than possible."

The Confederate colonel was convinced by his impressive actions and that there would be no use to resist.

"I hope you will let me keep my sword, however," he said.

"Certainly," said Colonel Edwards, generously, "you can keep your sword, but your men must lay down their arms and pa.s.s to the rear immediately."

The whole brigade including a squad of the famous Louisiana Tigers were disarmed and marched to the rear as prisoners of war by Colonel Edwards and his twelve men. One of these men said afterward, "Colonel, I nearly lost that battle for you by laughing when you spoke about their 'surrendering to avoid loss of life.'"

The most terrible missile in modern warfare is the explosive sh.e.l.l.

Records show that the greatest loss of life occurs from artillery fire and not from rifle bullets. In the Civil War these sh.e.l.ls were especially feared. The solid shot and the grape and the canister were bad enough, but when a great, smoking sh.e.l.l dropped into the midst of a regiment, the bravest men fled for shelter. The fuses were cut so that the sh.e.l.l would explode immediately on striking or a very few seconds afterward. The explosion would drive jagged fragments of iron and sometimes heated bullets through scores of men within a radius of fully one hundred yards. No wounds were more feared or more fatal than the ghastly rips and tears made by the jagged, red-hot fragments of sh.e.l.ls.

The men became used to the hiss and the whistle of the solid shot and the whirling bullets, but when the scream of the hollow sh.e.l.l was heard through the air overhead, like the yell of some great, fatal, flying monster, every man within hearing tried to get under shelter.

In 1864, the 101st Ohio Infantry were fighting at Buzzards Roost, Georgia. Company H was drawn up along the banks of the stream there and one of the Confederate batteries had just got its range. Suddenly there came across the woods the long, fierce, wailing scream of one of the great sh.e.l.ls and before the echo had died out it appeared over the tree tops and fell right in the midst of a hundred men, hissing and spitting fire. All the men but one scattered in every direction. Private Jacob F. Yaeger was on the edge of the group and could have secured his own safety by dodging behind a large tree which stood conveniently near.

Just as he was about to do this he saw that some of the men had not had time enough to get away and were just scrambling up only a few feet from the spluttering sh.e.l.l. He acted on one of those quick, brave impulses which make heroes of men. Like a flash, he sprinted across the field, tearing off his coat as he ran, wrapped it round the hissing, hot sh.e.l.l and started for the creek, clasping it tight against his breast. By this time the fuse had burned so far in that there was no opportunity to cut it below the spark. His only chance was to get it into the water before the spark reached the powder below. He reached the bank of the creek in about two jumps, but, as he said afterward, he seemed to hang in the air a half hour between each jump. Even as he reached the bank, he hurled the sh.e.l.l, coat and all, into the deep, sluggish water and involuntarily ducked for the explosion which he was sure was going to come. It didn't. The water stopped the spark just in time and Private Yaeger had saved the lives of many of his comrades.

Of all the prizes which are most valued in war the captured battle-flags of an enemy rank first. The flag is the symbol of an army's life. While it waves the army is living and undefeated. When the flag falls, or when it is captured, all is over. In battle the men rally around their colors and the flag stands for life or death. It must never be given up and the one who carries the flag has not only the most honorable but the most dangerous post in his company. Against the flag every charge is directed. The man who carries the flag knows that he is marked above all others for attack. The man who saves a flag from capture saves his company or his regiment not only from defeat, but from disgrace.

In the battle of Gettysburg, Corporal Nathaniel M. Allen of the First Ma.s.sachusetts Infantry was the color-bearer of his company. On the 2d of July his regiment had been beaten back under the tremendous attacks of the Confederate forces. Their retreat became almost a rout as the men ran to escape the murderous fire which was being poured in upon them by concealed batteries of the enemy as well as from the muskets of the advancing infantry. Corporal Allen stayed back in the rear and retreated slowly and reluctantly so as to give his company a chance to return and rally. Beyond and still farther back than he, marching grimly and doggedly from the enemy, was the color-bearer of his regiment carrying the regimental flag. Suddenly Allen saw him falter, stop, fling up his arms and fall headlong on the field tangled up in the flag which he was carrying. There came a tremendous yell from the advancing Confederate forces as they saw the flag go down. Allen stopped and for a moment hesitated. It was only his duty to carry and wave his own colors, but at that moment he saw a squad of gray-backs start out from the advancing Confederate forces and make a rush to capture the flag which lay flat and motionless in a widening pool of the color-bearer's blood. This was too much for Allen. With a yell of defiance he rushed back, heedless of the bullets which hissed all around him, and rolling over the dead body of the man who had given his life for his colors he pulled the regimental flag from under his body, and started back for the distant Union forces. By this time the Confederates were close upon him, but his brave deed had not gone unnoticed. Seeing him coming across the stricken field with a flag in either hand, the rear-guard of his regiment turned back with a cheer and poured in a volley into the approaching Confederates which stopped them just long enough to let Allen escape and to carry back both the colors.

"What's the matter with you fellows anyway," said Allen, as he reached the safety of the rear rank; "do you think I'm going to do all the fighting?"

A storm of cheers and laughter greeted this remark and the rear-guard stopped. Slowly the others, hearing the cheers, and stranger still, the laughing, came back to the colors and in a few minutes the line was again formed and this time the regiment held and drove back the attack of the Confederates. One man by doing more than his duty had changed a defeat into a victory.

Sometimes in a battle a man becomes an involuntary hero. In some of Sienkiwictz's war-novels, he has a character named Zagloba who was constantly doing brave deeds in spite of himself. In one battle he became caught in a charge and while struggling desperately to get out, he tripped and fell on top of the standard-bearer of the other army who had just been killed. Zagloba found himself caught and entangled in the banner and finally, as the battle swept on, he emerged from the place in safety carrying the standard of the enemy and from that day forward was held as one of the heroes of the army.

At the battle of Chancellorsville Major Clifford Thompson at Hazel Grove became an involuntary hero and did a much braver deed than he had intended, although, unlike Zagloba, he had shown no lack of courage throughout the battle. General Pleasonton was forming a line of battle along the edge of the woods and was riding from gun to gun inspecting the line when suddenly not two hundred yards distant a body of men appeared marching toward them. He was about to give the order to fire when a sergeant called out to him:

"Wait, General, I can see our colors in the line."

The General hesitated a moment and then turning said, "Major Thompson, ride out and see who those people are and come back and tell me."

As the major said afterward, he had absolutely no curiosity personally to find out anything about them and was perfectly willing to let them introduce themselves, but an order is an order, and he accordingly rode directly toward the approaching men. He could plainly see that they had Union colors, but could see no trace of any Union uniforms. When he was only about forty yards distant, the whole line called out to him:

"Come on in, we're friends; don't be afraid."

The major, however, had heard of too many men being made prisoners by pretended friends and accordingly rode along the front of the whole line in order to determine definitely the character of the approaching forces, fearing that the colors which he saw and which they kept waving toward him might have been Union colors captured from the Union forces the day before. Seeing that he did not come closer, one of the front rank suddenly fired directly at him and then with a tremendous Rebel yell the whole body charged down upon the Union forces. Thompson turned his horse to dash back to his own lines, but realized that, caught between two fires, he would evidently be shot either by his own troops or by the Rebels behind him. Das.h.i.+ng his spurs into his horse, he rode like the wind between the two lines, hoping to get past them both before the final volley came. Fortunately for him both sides reserved their fire until they came to close quarters although he received a fusillade of scattered shots all along the line. Just as he rounded the ends, the lines came together with a crash and simultaneous volleys of musketry. There were a few moments of hand-to-hand fighting, but the Union forces were too strong and the Confederate ranks broke and retreated in scattering groups to the shelter of the woods beyond. The major reached the rear of his own lines just in time to help drive back the last rush of the Confederates. A few moments later he saw General Pleasonton sitting on his horse nearly in the same place where he had been when he had first sent him on his errand. Riding up to him, Major Thompson saluted.