The Last Spike by Cy Warman (red white and royal blue hardcover .TXT) 📕

the "thunderbolt" held at Alton for the soldiers' special. "Take siding at Sundance for troop train, south-bound," he would flash out, and glory in his power to help the government.

All day he would work and scheme for the company (and the Union), and at night, when the silver moonlight lay on the lot back of the machine shops, he would drill and drill as long as he could hold the men together. They were all stout and fearless young fellows, trained and accustomed to danger by the hazard of their daily toil. They knew something of discipline, were used to obeying orders, and to reading and remembering regulations made for their guidance; and Jewett reasoned that they would become, in time, a crack company, and a credit to the state.

By the time he had his company properly drilled, young Jewett was so perfectly saturated with the subject of war that he was almost unfit for duty as a despatcher. Only his anxiety about south-bound troop trains held his mind to the matter and his hand to the wheel. At night, after a long evening in the drill field, he would dream of great battles, and hear in his dreams the ceaseless tramp, tramp of soldiers marching down from the north to re-enforce the fellows in the fight.

Finally, when he felt that they were fit, he called his company together for the election of officers. Jewett was the unanimous choice for captain, other officers were chosen, and the captain at once applied for a commission.

The Jewetts were an influential family, and no one doubted the result of the young despatcher's request. He waited anxiously for some time, wrote a second letter, and waited again. "Any news from Springfield?" the conductor would ask, leaving the register, and the chief despatcher would shake his head.

One morning, on entering his office, Jewett found a letter on his desk. It was from the Superintendent, and it stated bluntly that the resignation of the chief despatcher would be accepted, and named his successor.

Jewett read it over a second time, then turned and carried it into the office of his chief.

"Why?" echoed the Superintendent; "you ought to know why. For months you have neglected your office, and have worked and schemed and conspired to get trainmen and enginemen to quit work and go to war. Every day women who are not ready to be widowed come here and cry on the carpet because their husbands are going away with 'Captain' Jewett's company. Only yesterday a schoolgirl came running after me, begging me not to let her little brother, the red-headed peanut on the local, go as drummer-boy in 'Captain' Jewett's company.

"And now, after demoralizing the service and almost breaking up a half a hundred homes, you ask, 'Why?' Is that all you have to say?"

"No," said the despatcher, lifting his head; "I have to say to you, sir, that I have never knowingly neglected my duty. I have not conspired. I have been misjudged and misunderstood; and in conclusion, I would say that my resignation shall be written at once."

Returning to his desk, Jewett found the long-looked-for letter from Springfield. How his heart beat as he broke the seal! How timely--just as things come out in a play. He would not interrupt traffic on the Alton, but with a commission in his pocket would go elsewhere and organize a new company. These things flashed through his mind as he unfolded the letter. His eye fell immediately on the signature at the end. It was not the name of the Governor, who had been a close friend of his father, but of the Lieutenant-Governor. It was a short letter, but plain; and it left no hope. His request had been denied.

This time he did not ask why. He knew why, and knew that the influence of a great railway company, with the best of the argument on its side, would outweigh the influence of a train despatcher and his friends.

Reluctantly Jewett took leave of his old associates in the office, went to his room in the hotel, and sat for hours crushed and discouraged. Presently he rose, kicked the kinks out of his trousers, and walked out into the clear sunlight. At the end of the street he stepped from the side-walk to the sod path and kept walking. He passed an orchard and plucked a ripe peach from an overhanging bough. A yellow-breasted lark stood in a stubble-field, chirped two or three times, and soared, singing, toward the far blue sky. A bare-armed man, with a muley cradle, was cradling grain, and, far away, he heard the hum of a horse-power threshing machine. It had been months, it seemed years, since he had been in the country, felt its cooling breeze, smelled the fresh breath of the fields, or heard the song of a lark; and it rested and refreshed him.

When young Jewett returned to the town he was himself again. He had been guilty of no wrong, but had been about what seemed to him his duty to his country. Still, he remembered with sadness the sharp rebuke of the Superintendent, a feeling intensified by the recollection that it was the same official who had brought him in from Springdale, made a train despatcher out of him, and promoted him as often as he had earned promotion. If he had seemed to be acting in bad faith with the officials of the road, he would make amends. That night he called his company together, told them that he had been unable to secure a commission, stated that he had resigned and was going away, and advised them to disband.

The company forming at Lexington was called "The Farmers," just as the Bloomington company was known as the "Car-hands." "The Farmers" was full, the captain said, when Jewett offered his services. At the last moment one of the boys had "heart failure," and Jewett was taken in his place. His experience with the disbanded "Car-hands" helped him and his company immeasurably. It was only a few days after his departure from Bloomington that he again passed through, a private in "The Farmers."

Once in the South, the Lexington company became a part of the 184th Illinois Infantry, and almost immediately engaged in fighting. Jewett panted to be on the firing-line, but that was not to be. The regiment had just captured an important railway which had to be manned and operated at once. It was the only means of supplying a whole army corps with bacon and beans. The colonel of his company was casting about for railroaders, when he heard of Private Jewett. He was surprised to find, in "The Farmers," a man of such wide experience as a railway official, so well posted on the general situation, and so keenly alive to the importance of the railroad and the necessity of keeping it open. Within a week Jewett had made a reputation. If there had been time to name him, he would doubtless have been called superintendent of transportation; but there was no time to classify those who were working on the road. They called him Jewett. In some way the story of the one-time captain's experience at Bloomington came to the colonel's ears, and he sent for Jewett. As a result of the interview, the young private was taken from the ranks, made a captain, and "assigned to special duty." His special duty was that of General Manager of the M. & L. Railroad, with headquarters in a car.

Jewett called upon the colonel again, uninvited this time, and protested. He wanted to get into the fighting. "Don't worry, my boy," said the good-natured colonel, "I'll take the fight out of you later on; for the present, Captain Jewett, you will continue to run this railroad."

The captain saluted and went about his business.

There had been some fierce fighting at the front, and the Yankees had gotten decidedly the worst of it. Several attempts had been made to rush re-enforcements forward by rail, but with poor success. The pilot engines had all been ditched. As a last desperate chance, Jewett determined to try a "black" train. Two engines were attached to a troop-train, and Jewett seated himself on the pilot of the forward locomotive. The lights were all put out. They were to have no pilot engine, but were to slip past the ambuscade, if possible, and take chances on lifted rails and absent bridges. It was near the end of a dark, rainy night. The train was rolling along at a good freight clip, the engines working as full as might be without throwing fire, when suddenly, from either side of the track, a yellow flame flared out, followed immediately by the awful roar of the muskets from whose black mouths the murderous fire had rushed. The bullets fairly rained on the jackets of the engines, and crashed through the cab windows. The engineer on the head engine was shot from his seat. Jewett, in a hail of lead, climbed over the running-board, pulled wide the throttle, and whistled "off brakes." The driver of the second engine, following his example, opened also, and the train was thus whirled out of range, but not until Jewett had been badly wounded. A second volley rained upon the rearmost cars, but did little damage. The enemy had been completely outwitted. They had mistaken the train for a pilot engine, which they had planned to let pass; after which they were to turn a switch, ditch, and capture the train.

There was great rejoicing in the hungry army at the front that dawn, when the long train laden with soldiers and sandwiches arrived. The colonel was complimented by the corps commander, but he was too big and brave to accept promotion for an achievement in which he had had no part or even faith. He told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; and, when it was all over, there was no more "Captain" Jewett. When he came out of the hospital he had the rank of a major, but was still "assigned to special duty."

Major Jewett's work became more important as the great struggle went on. Other lines of railway fell into the hands of the Yankees, and all of them in that division of the army came under his control. They were good for him, for they made him a very busy man and kept him from panting for the firing-line. In conjunction with General D., the famous army engineer, who has since become a noted railroad-builder, he rebuilt and re-equipped wrecked railways, bridged wide rivers, and kept a way open for men and supplies to get to the front.

When at last the little, ragged, but ever-heroic remnant of the Confederate army surrendered, and the worn and weary soldiers set their faces to the north again, Major Jewett's name was known throughout the country.

At the close of the war, in recognition of his ability and great service to the Union, Major Jewett was made a brevet colonel, by which title he is known to almost every railway man in America.

* * * * *

Many opportunities came to Colonel Jewett to enter once more the field in which, since his school days, he had been employed. One by one these offers were put aside. They were too easy. He had been so long in the wreck of things that he felt out of place on a prosperous, well-regulated line. He knew of a little struggling road that ran east