A Rebellion in Dixie by Harry Castlemon (best books to read in life .TXT) 📕

started Cale off on a new subject, and it wasn’t long before he forgot that there were armed men within less than a quarter of a mile from him. If Leon and Tom could have been dealt with as these young backwoodsmen wanted them to be it wouldn’t be long before they would have changed places. They probably passed an hour in talking over their various plans, and then they were brought to an abrupt silence by the sound of horses’ hoofs upon the road. The men had been advancing so cautiously that they were close upon them before they knew it. Cale, whose greatest care was to keep out of sight, at once stretched himself at full length in the bushes, while Dan, who wanted to see who the men were, raised himself to his full height and looked over the thicket. What he saw was about a dozen men, all on horseback, and noted, too, that they were all dressed in Confederate uniform; 224but one thing that astonished him was a revolver that was pointed straight at his head. The leader of the horsemen was an old soldier, and he could not be taken unawares.

“Halloo! By George, there’s a Yank,” he exclaimed. “Come out of that.”

Dan was thunderstruck. He had never expected to be greeted this way by his friends, and for a moment or two he stood with his hands down by his side unable to move or speak; while Cale, uttering a smothered ejaculation, began to worm his way out of the bushes on his belly.

“Hold on! There are two of you there, and if you move another hair I will cut loose on you!” shouted the leader; and to show that he was in earnest he turned his horse and rode into the woods. His men were with him, and when Dan cleared his eyes of a mist that seemed to obstruct their vision he found that there were half a dozen revolvers looking at him. “We’ve got you and you might as well come out. Where do you belong?”

“Are you Confederates?” stammered Dan.

225“Of course we are. What did you take us for? Come out of that.”

“Well, now, if you are Confederates you want to turn those weapons the other way,” said Dan, growing bolder when he heard his own voice. “I am as good a Confederate as you are.”

“Oh, well, then, it is all right. Come out here on the road so that we can talk to you. Get up there, you fellow lying in those bushes. You needn’t think we are going to hurt you. Now, then, what do you know? Have you seen any Confederates around here to-day?”

“No, I haven’t. But say,” added Dan, who had by this time taken up his stand in the road and grew bolder when he saw that none of the soldiers addressed him by name, “you want to get all the head men of Jones county in your hands, don’t you?”

“Well, I should say so,” exclaimed the leader, showing more enthusiasm than he had thus far exhibited. “Can you put me in the way of getting my hands onto them?”

“How much will you give?” said Dan.

226“How much will I give?” asked the leader, as if he did not quite catch Dan’s meaning.

“Yes. My father had some talk with you fellows about it, and he says he is working for a colonel’s commission. He won’t work for any less. Now, you can afford to give me captain and my brother here lieutenant, can’t you?”

The captain, for that’s who he was, was taken aback by this bold declaration on the part of Dan. He looked hard at him to see if he was in earnest, and then looked around at his men. There was one present, a lieutenant, who evidently measured Dan by his own estimate, for he said:

“I was there and heard all about it, Captain. We had a long talk with the old man—what’s your father’s name?” he added, bending down from his saddle and trying to get a glimpse of Dan’s face.

“His name is Newman,” said Dan.

“And yours?”

“Dan; and this is my brother, Cale Newman. We are two good Confederates, dyed in the wool.”

227“I know you are, for I recognize the name. We had a long talk with Mr. Newman about it, and we agreed to give him a colonel’s position if he would put us in the way of getting the chief men of Jones county into our hands. Now, Captain, you can afford to give two such little offices as he wants in return for his services.”

“Why, yes, of course,” said the captain, who fell in at once with his lieutenant’s ruse. “You see, Captain—I want all of you men hereafter to address this man as captain and his brother as lieutenant—do you hear?” he added, turning to his squad; and a responsive “Yes, sir,” came from all the men; although candor compels us to say that some of them wanted to laugh. Some of them looked back down the road, and others had something to to do with fixing their feet in their stirrups.

“Thank-ee, Captain; thank-ee,” said Dan, who didn’t know whether he was awake or dreaming. “Just give us a horse apiece and a gun, and we will lead you against those men any day.”

Cale Newman scarcely believed he had heard 228aright. He knew more about military matters than his brother did, and he did not know that an officer had a right to promote one to his own rank without going first through some preliminary steps. He listened in a dazed sort of way to the conference between the leader of the squad and Dan, but as no one spoke to him and addressed him as “lieutenant,” he did not know whether he was an officer or not. At any rate, he decided to get home before he built any hopes upon it. His father had “seen some military” (although where he saw it, it would be hard to tell, unless he had seen some military companies march along the street), and he would know whether or not everything was just as it should be.

“You see, Captain, I was not with my officers when they talked this matter over with your father, and consequently I didn’t know anything about it,” said the leader of the squad. “However, I am glad to be set right on the matter. You spoke of surrendering the chief men into our hands; now, how are you going to do it?”

229“I will tell you where you can get one of them right here,” said Dan. “Leon Sprague has gone down the road with a rebel fellow that he has been running with since yesterday—”

“A rebel fellow?” interrupted the captain, in astonishment. “Have any of our men deserted to you?”

“Oh, yes; there’s lots of them. We had 1498 men when this war broke out,” replied Dan, copying what he had often heard his father say, “and now we have a thousand fighting men camped right up this road.”

“Well, I declare,” said the captain, turning to his lieutenant. “We came within an ace of getting right in the midst of it. They are camping right up this road, you say?”

“Yes; and they stole a big lot of provisions from you yesterday.”

“We know that, dog-gone them!” said the captain. “We have come up here to see about those provisions. Do you know where they are?”

“The most of them have been hauled to the swamp.”

230“There!” said the lieutenant. “Then it is of no use to go any further. If those goods have been taken to the swamp they are lost to us.”

“I confess it does look that way. Now, about this rebel fellow who has just gone off. What is he going after; do you know?”

“He may be out scouting, the same as you are,” replied Dan.

“And he takes a couple of green boys to help him scout the same as we are?” exclaimed the captain. “I guess not. He’s got some friends down here, and he wants to get them on the other side of the line. Do you know where this boy lives or what he is?”

“We can easy catch him as we go back,” said the lieutenant. “And in the meantime I would suggest to you the propriety of going up and finding out for ourselves the number of pickets they have placed at the bridge. I believe you said there were some there?” he continued, turning to Dan.

“There’s a whole pile of them,” answered Dan. “We didn’t see them ourselves, because we swum the creek; but when we got over 231here I went out to see if I could see anything of the sentinels, and they saw and halted me.”

“But you didn’t go in, did you?”

“Not much I didn’t. I took leg bail, and got into the woods. You see the men up there are acquainted with us, and if they got us they would make us stretch hemp.” Another quotation from his father.

“Well, we shall have to ask you to stay here until we come back,” said the captain. “We shan’t be gone but a little while. Forward, and hold your sabres in so that they won’t hit against your heels.”

The two boys stood there in the road and saw them ride around the first bend, and they went so silent and still that one who didn’t know they were there would not have suspected anything. As soon as they were out of hearing Dan showed off a little of the enthusiasm that was in him.

“Captain! Captain Dan Newman!” said he, with a violent attempt to refrain from giving a wild hurrah. “And I never was in the army in my life! And you are a lieutenant, Cale. But you don’t seem to think much of it.”

232“The fact is, I don’t know whether I am an officer or not,” replied Cale, looking down at the ground. “I don’t believe that officer had any right to promote us.”

“Well, I declare, you are a dunce,” said his brother, more than half inclined to get angry with him. “Didn’t you hear what the officer said to his men—‘I want you all to address him as captain and his brother as lieutenant’—I tell you that’s enough for me.”

“But this officer was a captain.”

“No matter for that.”

“And I don’t believe that he had a right to promote you to the same rank as himself. They don’t do business like that in Jones county.”

“What way?”

“Why, the President has something to do with it.”

“Somebody has been stuffing you. Of course they don’t do business that way in Jones county; but these men are in the service, and of course they know what’s right.”

“Well, I am going to wait until I see 233father, and if he tells me that I am an officer, why I’ll have to believe it.”

This was a new thing to Dan, and he did not say any more. He supposed that the next thing was to be ordered to Mobile, where his uniform, a horse and weapons would be given him, and after that he would be at liberty to take command of a body of scouts the same as this captain had done; but now he began to look at it in a different light.

“I’ll tell you what is the matter with you,” said Cale, after thinking the matter over. “It all comes of your wanting father to get that commission as colonel.”

“Hasn’t he got a right to it, I’d like to know?” retorted Dan. “He said he wouldn’t work for any less.”

“I know, but they didn’t tell him that they would give him that commission. He told us that he was working for it; and here the rebs have gone and got on your blind side—”

“Whoop!” yelled Dan, his anger getting the start of him; and with the word he kicked out savagely at his brother, who was just a little bit too quick for him. He slipped out 234of the way, and Dan’s momentum took him around on one foot and finally seated him rather roughly on the ground.

“That shows that you don’t believe it more than I do,” said Cale. “Heavens and earth! What’s that?”

It was fortunate that something happened to turn Dan’s mind from all thoughts of revenge, for just then there was a rapid fusillade of carbines heard up the road. Dan picked himself up, and before he could answer there came another report of rifles in reply to the first, and they were so accurately aimed that some of the bullets passed through the branches above their heads. The first alarm was given by the rebels, who wanted to see how many men there were at the bridge. They had halted a little ways from the creek, leaving two men to hold their horses, and crept up on the unconscious sentinel and brought him bleeding to the ground. A moment later they became aware that the pickets at the