This had lasted for less than two minutes when my comrades, pursued by a strong body of Federal cavalry, dashed back again through the picket post.
As they came on at a full run Fitz Lee saw me, and, slackening speed slightly, he thrust out his foot and held out his hand--a cavalry trick in which all of us had been trained. Responding, I seized his hand, placed my foot upon his and swung to his crupper. A minute later a supporting company came to our a.s.sistance and the pursuing cavalrymen in blue retired.
The incident was not at all an unusual one, but the memory of it came back to me years afterwards under rather peculiar circ.u.mstances. In 1889 there was held in New York a spectacular celebration of the centennial of Washington"s inauguration as president. A little company of us who had organized ourselves into a society known as "The Virginians," gave a banquet to the commissioners appointed to represent Virginia on that occasion. It so fell out that I was called upon to preside at the banquet, and General Fitzhugh Lee, then Governor of Virginia, sat, of course, at my right.
Somewhere between the oysters and the entree I turned to him and said:
"It seemed a trifle odd to me, General, and distinctly un-Virginian, to greet you as a stranger when we were presented to each other a little while ago. Of course, to you I mean nothing except a name heard in introduction; but you saved my life once and to me this meeting means a good deal."
[Sidenote: Fitz Lee]
In answer to his inquiries I began to tell the story. Suddenly he interrupted in his impetuous way, asking:
"Are you the man I took on my crupper that day down there by Dranesville?"
And with that he pushed back his plate and rising nearly crushed my hand in friendly grasp. Then he told me stories of other meetings with his old troopers,--stories dramatic, pathetic, humorous,--until I had need of General Pryor"s reminder that I was presiding and that there were duties for me to do, however interesting I might find Fitzhugh Lee"s conversation to be.
From that time until his death I saw much of General Lee, and learned much of his character and impulses, which I imagine are wholly undreamed of by those who encountered him only in his official capacities. He had the instincts of the scholar, without the scholar"s opportunity to indulge them. "It is a matter of regret," he said to me in Washington one day, "that family tradition has decreed that all Lees shall be soldiers. I have often regretted that I was sent to West Point instead of being educated in a more scholarly way. You know I have Carter blood and Mason blood in my veins, and the Carters and Masons have had intellects worth cultivating."
I replied by quoting from Byron"s "Mazeppa" the lines:
""Ill betide The school wherein I learned to ride."
Quoth Charles: "Old Hetman, wherefore so, Since thou hast learned the art so well?""
Instantly he responded by continuing the quotation:
"""Twere long to tell, And we have many a league to go With every now and then a blow;"
That is to say, I"m still Consul-General at Havana, and I have an appointment to see the President on official business this morning."
As we were sitting in my rooms at the Arlington and not in his quarters at the Sh.o.r.eham, this was not a hint of dismissal, but an apology for leaving.
The conversation awakened surprise in my mind, and ever since I have wondered how many of the world"s great men of action have regretted that they were not men of thought instead, and how far the regret was justified. If Fitz Lee had been educated at Yale or Harvard, what place would he have occupied in the world? Would he have become a Virginian lawyer and perhaps a judge? or what else? Conjecture in such a case is futile. "If" is a word of very uncertain significance.
The story told in the foregoing paragraphs reminds me of another experience.
When the war ended it became very necessary that I should go to Indiana with the least possible delay. But at Richmond I was stopped by a peremptory military order that forbade ex-Confederates to go North. The order had been issued in consequence of Mr. Lincoln"s a.s.sa.s.sination, and the disposition to enforce it rigidly was very strong.
In my perplexity I made my way into the office of the Federal chief of staff of that department. There I encountered a stalwart and impressive officer, six feet, four or five inches high--or perhaps even an inch or two more than that--who listened with surprising patience while I explained my necessity to him. When I had done, he placed his hand upon my shoulder in comradely fashion and said:
"You didn"t have anything to do with Mr. Lincoln"s a.s.sa.s.sination. I"ll give you a special pa.s.s to go North as soon as you please."
I thanked him and took my leave.
[Sidenote: A Friendly Old Foe]
In 1907--forty-two years later--some one in the Authors Club introduced me to "our newest member, Mr. Curtis."
I glanced at the towering form, and recognized it instantly.
"_Mr._ Curtis be hanged," I answered, "I know General Newton Martin Curtis, and I have good reason to remember him. He is the man who let me out of Richmond."
Since that time I have learned to know General Curtis well, and to cherish him as a friend and club comrade as heartily as I honored him before for his gallantry in war and for his ceaseless and most fruitful efforts since the war in behalf of reconciliation and brotherhood between the men who once confronted each other with steel between.
Senator Daniel of Virginia has written of him that no other man has done so much as he in that behalf, and I have reason to know that the statement is not an exaggerated one. The kindliness he showed to me in Richmond when we were utter strangers and had only recently been foemen, inspired all his relations with the Virginians during all the years that followed, and there is no man whose name to-day awakens a readier response of good will among Virginians than does his.
XXIX
Late in the autumn of that first year of war there was reason to believe that the armies in Virginia were about to retire into the dull lethargy of winter-quarters" life, and that the scene of active war was to be transferred to the coast of South Carolina. The Federals had concentrated heavy forces there and in a preparatory campaign had seized upon the Sea Islands and their defensive works at Beaufort and elsewhere. General Lee had already been sent thither to command and defend the coast, and there seemed no doubt that an active winter campaign was to occur in that region. I wanted to have a part in it, and to that end I sought and secured a transfer to a battery of field artillery which was under orders for the South.
As a matter of fact, the active campaign never came, and for many moons we led the very idlest life down there that soldiers in time of war ever led anywhere.
But the service, idle as it was, played greater havoc in our ranks than the most ceaseless battling could have done.
For example, we were sent one day from Charleston across the Ashley river, to defend a bridge over Wappoo Cut. We had a hundred and eight men on duty--all well and vigorous. One week later eight of them were dead, eight barely able to answer to roll call, and all the rest in hospital. In the meanwhile we had not fired a gun or caught sight of an enemy.
On another occasion we encamped in a delightful but pestilential spot, and for ten days afterward our men died at the rate of from two to six every twenty-four hours.
During the term of our service on that coast we were only once engaged in what could be called a battle. That was at Pocotaligo on the 22nd of October, 1862. In point of numbers engaged it was a very small battle, indeed, but it was the very hottest fight I was ever in, not excepting any of the tremendous struggles in the campaign of 1864 in Virginia. My battery went into that fight with fifty-four men and forty-five horses.
We fought at pistol-shot range all day, and came out of the struggle with a tally of thirty-three men killed and wounded, and with only eighteen horses alive--all of them wounded but one.
General Beauregard with his own hand presented the battery a battle flag and authorized an inscription on it in memory of the event. In all that we rejoiced with as much enthusiasm as a company of ague-smitten wretches could command, but it is no wonder that our Virginia mountaineers took on a new lease of life when at last we were ordered to rejoin the Army of Northern Virginia, as a part of Longstreet"s artillery.
x.x.x
[Sidenote: Left Behind]
At the end of the campaign of 1863 we found ourselves unhorsed.
We had guns that we knew how to use, and caissons full of ammunition, but we had no horses to draw either the guns or the caissons. So when Longstreet was ordered south to bear a part in the campaign of Chickamauga, we were left behind. After a time, during which we were like the dog in the express car who had "chawed up his tag," we were a.s.signed for the winter to General Lindsay Walker"s command--the artillery of A. P. Hill"s corps.
We belonged to none of the battalions there, and therefore had no field officers through whom to apply for decent treatment. For thirteen wintry days we lay at Lindsay"s Turnout, with no rations except a meager dole of cornmeal. Then one day a yoke of commissary oxen, starved into a condition of hopeless anemia, became stalled in the mud near our camp.
By some hook or crook we managed to buy those wrecks of what had once been oxen. We butchered them, and after twenty-four or thirty-six hours of continual stewing, we had meat again.
Belonging to no battalion in the corps to which we were attached, we were a battery "with no rights that anybody was bound to respect," and presently the fact was emphasized. We were appointed to be the provost company of the corps. That is to say, we had to build guardhouses and do all the duties incident to the care of military prisoners.
The arrangement brought welcome occupation to me. As Sergeant-Major I had the executive management of the military prisons and of everything pertaining to them. As a lawyer who could charge no fees without a breach of military etiquette, I was called upon to defend, before the courts-martial, all the more desperate criminals under our care. These included murderers, malingerers, robbers, deserters, and men guilty of all the other crimes possible in that time and country. They included no a.s.sailants of women. I would not have defended such in any case, and had there been such our sentinels would have made quick work of their disposal.
[Sidenote: A Gratuitous Law Practice]
The rest, as I was convinced, were guilty, every man of them. But equally I was convinced that a court-martial, if left to deal with them in its own way, would condemn them whether guilty or not. To a court-martial, as a rule, the accusation--in the case of a private soldier--is conclusive and final. If not, then a very little evidence--admissible or not--is sufficient to confirm it. It is the sole function of counsel before a court-martial to do the very little he can to secure a reasonably fair trial, to persuade the officers const.i.tuting the court that there is a difference between admissible evidence and testimony that should not be received at all, and finally, to put in a written plea at the end which may direct the attention of the reviewing officers higher up to any unfairness or injustice done in the course of the trial. Theoretically a court-martial is bound by the accepted rules of evidence and by all other laws relating to the conduct of criminal trials; but practically the court-martial, in time of war at least, is bound by nothing. It is a tribunal organized to convict, and its proceedings closely resemble those of a vigilance committee.