The Guns of Shiloh: A Story of the Great Western Campaign

THE SINGER OF THE HILLS

As the engine whistled for the last time Dick sprang upon a car-step, one hand holding to the rail while with the other he returned the powerful grip of Red Blaze, who with his own unconfined hand grasped the bridles of the three horses, which had served them so well.  Petty had received a reward thrust upon him by Colonel Newcomb, but Dick knew that the mountaineer’s chief recompense was the success achieved in the perilous task chosen for him.

“Good-bye, Mr. Mason,” said Red Blaze, “I’m proud to have knowed you an’ the sergeant, an’ to have been your comrade in a work for the Union.”

“Without you we should have failed.”

“It jest happened that I knowed the way.  It seems to me that there’s a heap, a tremenjeous heap, in knowin’ the way.  It gives you an awful advantage.  Now you an’ your regiment are goin’ down thar in them Kentucky mountains.  They’re mighty wild, winter’s here an’ the marchin’ will be about as bad as it could be.  Them’s mostly Pennsylvania men with you, an’ they don’t know a thing ’bout that thar region.  Like as not you’ll be walkin’ right straight into an ambush, an’ that’ll be the end of you an’ them Pennsylvanians.”

“You’re a cheerful prophet, Red Blaze.”

“I meant if you didn’t take care of yourselves an’ keep a good lookout, which I know, of course, that you’re goin’ to do.  I was jest statin’ the other side of the proposition, tellin’ what would happen to keerless people, but Colonel Newcomb an’ Major Hertford ain’t keerless people.  Good-bye, Mr. Mason.  Mebbe I’ll see you ag’in before this war is over.”

“Good-bye, Red Blaze.  I truly hope so.”

The train was moving now and with a last powerful grasp of a friendly hand Dick went into the coach.  It was the first in the train.  Colonel Newcomb and Major Hertford sat near the head of it, and Warner was just sitting down not far behind them.  Dick took the other half of the seat with the young Vermonter, who said, speaking in a whimsical tone: 

“You fill me with envy, Dick.  Why wasn’t it my luck to go with you, Sergeant Whitley, and the man they call Red Blaze on that errand and help bring back with you the message of President Lincoln?  But I heard what our red friend said to you at the car-step.  There’s a powerful lot in knowing the way, knowing where you’re going, and what’s along every inch of the road.  My arithmetic tells me that it is often fifty per cent of marching and fighting.”

“I think you are right,” said Dick.

A little later he was sound asleep in his seat, and at the command of Colonel Newcomb he was not disturbed.  His had been a task, taxing to the utmost both body and mind, and, despite his youth and strength, it would take nature some time to replace what had been worn away.

He slept on while the boys in the train talked and laughed.  Stern discipline was not yet enforced in either army, nor did Colonel Newcomb consider it necessary here.  These lads, so lately from the schools and farms, had won a victory and they had received the thanks of the President.  They had a right to talk about it among themselves and a little vocal enthusiasm now might build up courage and spirit for a greater crisis later.

The colonel, moreover, gave glances of approval and sympathy to his gallant young aide, who in the seat next to the window with his head against the wall slept so soundly.  All the afternoon Dick slept on, his breathing regular and steady.  The train rattled and rumbled through the high mountains, and on the upper levels the snow was falling fast.

Darkness came, and supper was served to the troops, but at the colonel’s command Dick was not awakened.  Nature had not yet finished her task of repairing.  There was worn tissue still to be replaced, and the nerves had not yet recovered their full steadiness.

So Dick slept on, while the night deepened and the snow continued to drive against the window panes.  Nor did he awake until morning, when the train stopped at a tiny station in the hills.  There was no snow here, but the sun, just rising, threw no heat, and icicles were hanging from every cliff.  Dispatches were waiting for Colonel Newcomb, and after breakfast he announced to his staff: 

“I have orders from Washington to divide my regiment.  The Southern forces are operating at three points in Kentucky.  They are gathering at Columbus on the Mississippi, at Bowling Green in the south, and here in the mountains there is a strong division under an officer named Zollicoffer.  Scattered forces of our men, the principal one led by a Virginian named Thomas, are endeavoring to deal with Zollicoffer.  The Secretary of War regrets the division of the regiment, but he thinks it necessary, as all our detached forces must be strengthened.  I go on with the main body of the regiment to join Grant, near the mouth of the Ohio.  You, Major Hertford, will take three companies and march south in search of Thomas, but be careful that you are not snapped up by the rebels on the way.  And if you can get volunteers and join Thomas with your force increased threefold, so much the better.”

“I shall try my best, sir,” said Major Hertford, “and thank you for this honor.”

Dick and Warner stood by without a word, but Dick cast an appealing look at Colonel Newcomb.

“Yes, I know,” said the Colonel, who caught the glance.  “This is your state, and you wish to go with Major Hertford.  You are to do so.  So is your friend, Lieutenant Warner, and, Major Hertford, I also lend to you Sergeant Whitley, who is a man of much experience and who has already proved himself to be of great value.”

The three saluted and were grateful.  They longed for action, which they believed would come more quickly with Major Hertford’s column.  A little later, when military form permitted it, the two boys thanked Colonel Newcomb in words.

“Maybe you won’t thank me a few days from now,” said the colonel a little grimly, “but I am hopeful that our plans here in Eastern Kentucky will prove successful, and that before long you will be able to join the great forces in the western part of the state.  You are both good boys and now, good-bye.”

The preparations for the mountain column, as Dick and Warner soon called it, had been completed.  They were on foot, but they were well armed, well clothed, and they had supplies loaded in several wagons, purchased hastily in the village.  A dozen of the strong mountaineers volunteered to be drivers and guides, and the major was glad to have them.  Later, several horses were secured for the officers, but, meanwhile, the train was ready to depart.

Colonel Newcomb waved them farewell, the faithful and valiant Canby opened the throttle, and the train steamed away.  The men in the little column, although eager for their new task, watched its departure with a certain sadness at parting with their comrades.  The train became smaller and smaller, then it was only a spiral of smoke, and that, too, soon died on the clear western horizon.

“And now to find Thomas!” said Major Hertford, who retained Dick and Warner on his staff, practically its only members, in fact.  “It looks odd to hunt through the mountains for a general and his army, but we’ve got it to do, and we’ll do it.”

The horses for the officers were obtained at the suggestion of Sergeant Whitley, and the little column turned southward through the wintry forest.  Dick and Warner were riding strong mountain ponies, but at times, and in order to show that they considered themselves no better than the others, they dismounted and walked over the frozen ground.  The greatest tasks were with the wagons containing the ammunition and supplies.  The mountain roads were little more than trails, sometimes half blocked with ice or snow and then again deep in mud.  The winter was severe.  Storms of rain, hail, sleet and snow poured upon them, but, fortunately, they were marching through continuous forests, and the skilled mountaineers, under any circumstances, knew how to build fires, by the side of which they could dry themselves, and sleep warmly at night.

They also heard much gossip as they advanced to meet General Thomas, who had been sent from Louisville to command the Northern troops in the Kentucky mountains.  Thomas was a Virginian, a member of the old regular army, a valiant, able, and cautious man, who chose to abide by the Union.  Many other Virginians, some destined to be as famous as he, and a few more so, wondered why he had not gone with his seceding state, and criticised him much, but Thomas, chary of speech, hung to his belief, and proved it by action.

Dick learned, too, that the Southern force operating against Thomas, while actively led by Zollicoffer, was under the nominal command of one of his own Kentucky Crittendens.  Here he saw again how terribly his beloved state was divided, like other border states.  General Crittenden’s father was a member of the Federal Congress at Washington, and one of his brothers was a general also, but on the other side.  But he was to see such cases over and over again, and he was to see them to a still greater and a wholesale degree, when the First Maryland regiment of the North and the First Maryland regiment of the South, recruited from the same district, should meet face to face upon the terrible field of Antietam.

But Antietam was far in the future, and Dick’s mind turned from the cases of brother against brother to the problems of the icy wilderness through which they were moving, in a more or less uncertain manner.  Sometimes they were sent on false trails, but their loyal mountaineers brought them back again.  They also found volunteers, and Major Hertford’s little force swelled from three hundred to six hundred.  In the main, the mountaineers were sympathetic, partly through devotion to the Union, and partly through jealousy of the more prosperous lowlanders.

One day Major Hertford sent Dick, Warner, and Sergeant Whitley, ahead to scout.  He had recognized the ability of the two lads, and also their great friendship for Sergeant Whitley.  It seemed fitting to him that the three should be nearly always together, and he watched them with confidence, as they rode ahead on the icy mountain trail and then disappeared from sight.

Dick and his friends had learned, at mountain cabins which they had passed, that the country opened out further on into a fine little valley, and when they reached the crest of a hill somewhat higher than the others, they verified the truth of the statement.  Before them lay the coziest nook they had yet seen in the mountains, and in the center of it rose a warm curl of smoke from the chimney of a house, much superior to that of the average mountaineer.  The meadows and corn lands on either side of a noble creek were enclosed in good fences.  Everything was trim and neat.

The three rode down the slope toward the house, but halfway to the bottom they reined in their ponies and listened.  Some one was singing.  On the thin wintry air a deep mellow voice rose and they distinctly heard the words: 

  Soft o’er the fountain, ling’ring falls the southern moon,
  Far o’er the mountain breaks the day too soon. 
  In thy dark eyes’ splendor, where the warm light loves to dwell,
  Weary looks yet tender, speak their fond farewell. 
  ’Nita, Juanita!  Ask thy soul if we should part,
  ’Nita, Juanita!  Lean thou on my heart.

It was a wonderful voice that they heard, deep, full, and mellow, all the more wonderful because they heard it there in those lone mountains.  The ridges took up the echo, and gave it back in tones softened but exquisitely haunting.

The three paused and looked at one another.  They could not see the singer.  He was hidden from them by the dips and swells of the valley, but they felt that here was no common man.  No common mind, or at least no common heart, could infuse such feeling into music.  As they listened the remainder of the pathetic old air rose and swelled through the ridges: 

  When in thy dreaming, moons like these shall shine again,
  And daylight beaming prove thy dreams are vain,
  Wilt thou not, relenting, for thy absent lover sigh? 
  In thy heart consenting to a prayer gone by! 
  ’Nita, Juanita!  Let me linger by thy side! 
  ’Nita, Juanita!  Be thou my own fair bride.

“I’m curious to see that singer,” said Warner.  “I heard grand opera once in Boston, just before I started to the war, but I never heard anything that sounds finer than this.  Maybe time and place help to the extent of fifty per cent, but, at any rate, the effect is just the same.”

“Come on,” said Dick, “and we’ll soon find our singer, whoever he is.”

The three rode at a rapid pace until they reached the valley.  There they drew rein, as they saw near them a tall man, apparently about forty years of age, mending a fence, helped by a boy of heavy build and powerful arms.  The man glanced up, saw the blue uniforms worn by the three horsemen, and went peacefully on with his fence-mending.  He also continued to sing, throwing his soul into the song, and both work and song proceeded as if no one was near.

He lifted the rails into place with mighty arms, but never ceased to sing.  The boy who helped him seemed almost his equal in strength, but he neither sang nor spoke.  Yet he smiled most of the time, showing rows of exceedingly strong, white teeth.

“They seem to me to be of rather superior type,” said Dick.  “Maybe we can get useful information from them.”

“I judge that the singer will talk about almost everything except what we want to know,” said the shrewd and experienced sergeant, “but we can certainly do no harm by speaking to him.  Of course they have seen us.  No doubt they saw us before we saw them.”

The three rode forward, saluted politely and the fence-menders, stopping their work, saluted in the same polite fashion.  Then they stood expectant.

“We belong to a detachment which is marching southward to join the Union army under General Thomas,” said Dick.  “Perhaps you could tell us the best road.”

“I might an’ ag’in I mightn’t, stranger.  If you don’t talk much you never have much to take back.  If I knew where that army is it would be easy for me to tell you, but if I didn’t know I couldn’t.  Now, the question is, do I know or don’t I know?  Do you think you can decide it for me stranger?”

It was impossible for Dick or the sergeant to take offense.  The man’s gaze was perfectly frank and open and his eyes twinkled as he spoke.  The boy with him smiled widely, showing both rows of his powerful white teeth.

“We can’t decide it until we know you better,” said Dick in a light tone.

“I’m willin’ to tell you who I am.  My name is Sam Jarvis, an’ this lunkhead here is my nephew, Ike Simmons, the son of my sister, who keeps my house.  Now I want to tell you, young stranger, that since this war began and the Yankees and the Johnnies have taken a notion to shoot up one another, people who would never have thought of doin’ it before, have come wanderin’ into these mountains.  But you can get a hint about ’em sometimes.  Young man, do you want me to tell you your name?”

“Tell me my name!” responded Dick in astonishment.  “Of course you can’t do it!  You never saw or heard of me before.”

“Mebbe no,” replied Jarvis, with calm confidence, “but all the same your name is Dick Mason, and you come from a town in Kentucky called Pendleton.  You’ve been serving with the Yanks in the East, an’ you’ve a cousin, named Harry Kenton, who’s been servin’ there also, but with the Johnnies.  Now, am I a good guesser or am I just a plum’ ignorant fool?”

Dick stared at him in deepening amazement.

“You do more than guess,” he replied.  “You know.  Everything that you said is true.”

“Tell me this,” said Jarvis.  “Was that cousin of yours, Harry Kenton, killed in the big battle at Bull Run?  I’ve been tremenjeously anxious about him ever since I heard of that terrible fight.”

“He was not.  I have not seen him since, but I have definite news now that he passed safely through the battle.”

Sam Jarvis and his nephew Ike breathed deep sighs of relief.

“I’m mighty glad to hear it,” said Jarvis, “I shorely liked that boy, Harry, an’ I think I’ll like you about as well.  It don’t matter to me that you’re on different sides, bein’ as I ain’t on any side at all myself, nor is this lunkhead, Ike, my nephew.”

“How on earth did you know me?”

“‘Light, an’ come into the house an’ I’ll tell you.  You an’ your pardners look cold an’ hungry.  There ain’t danger of anybody taking your hosses, ’cause you can hitch ’em right at the front door.  Besides, I’ve got an old grandmother in the house, who’d like mighty well to see you, Mr. Mason.”

Dick concluded that it was useless to ask any more questions just yet, and he, Warner and the sergeant, dismounting and leading their horses, walked toward the house with Jarvis and Ike.  Jarvis, who seemed singularly cheerful, lifted up his voice and sang: 

  Thou wilt come no more, gentle Annie,
  Like a flower, thy spirit did depart,
  Thou art gone, alas! like the many
  That have bloomed in the summer of my heart. 
  Shall we never more behold thee? 
  Never hear thy winning voice again? 
  When the spring time comes, gentle Annie? 
  When the wild flowers are scattered o’er the plain?

It seemed to Dick that the man sang spontaneously, and the deep, mellow voice always came back in faint and dying echoes that moved him in a singular manner.  All at once the war with its passions and carnage floated away.  Here was a little valley fenced in from the battle-world in which he had been living.  He breathed deeply and as the eyes of Jarvis caught his a sympathetic glance passed between them.

“Yes,” said Jarvis, as if he understood completely, “the war goes around us.  There is nothing to fight about here.  But come into the house.  This is my sister, the mother of that lunkhead, Ike, and here is my grandmother.”

He paused before the bent figure of an old, old woman, sitting in a rocking chair beside the chimney, beside which a fire glowed and blazed.  Her chin rested on one hand, and she was staring into the coals.

“Grandmother,” said Jarvis very gently, “the great-grandson of the great Henry Ware that you used to know was here last spring, and now the great-grandson of his friend, Paul Cotter, has come, too.”

The withered form straightened and she stood up.  Fire came into the old, old eyes that regarded Dick so intently.

“Aye,” she said, “you speak the truth, grandson.  It is Paul Cotter’s own face.  A gentle man he was, but brave, and the greatest scholar.  I should have known that when Henry Ware’s great-grandson came Paul Cotter’s, too, would come soon.  I am proud for this house to have sheltered you both.”

She put both her hands on his shoulders, and stood up very straight, her face close to his.  She was a tall woman, above the average height of man, and her eyes were on a level with Dick’s.

“It is true,” she said, “it is he over again.  The eyes are his, and the mouth and the nose are the same.  This house is yours while you choose to remain, and my grandchildren and my great-grandson will do for you whatever you wish.”

Dick noticed that her grammar and intonation were perfect.  Many of the Virginians and Marylanders who emigrated to Kentucky in that far-off border time were people of cultivation and refinement.

After these words of welcome she turned from him, sat down in her chair and gazed steadily into the coals.  Everything about her seemed to float away.  Doubtless her thoughts ran on those dim early days, when the Indians lurked in the canebrake and only the great borderers stood between the settlers and sure death.

Dick began to gather from the old woman’s words a dim idea of what had occurred.  Harry Kenton must have passed there, and as they went into the next room where food and coffee were placed before them, Jarvis explained.

“Your cousin, Harry Kenton, came through here last spring on his way to Virginia,” he said.  “He came with me an’ this lunkhead, Ike, all the way from Frankfort and mostly up the Kentucky River.  Grandmother was dreaming and she took him at first for Henry Ware, his very self.  She saluted him and called him the great governor.  It was a wonderful thing to see, and it made me feel just a little bit creepy for a second or two.  Mebbe you an’ your cousin, Harry Kenton, are Henry Ware an’ Paul Cotter, their very selves come back to earth.  It looks curious that both of you should wander to this little place hid deep in the mountains.  But it’s happened all the same.  I s’pose you’ve just been moved ’round that way by the Supreme Power that’s bigger than all of us, an’ that shifts us about to suit plans made long ago.  But how I’m runnin’ on!  Fall to, friends—­I can’t call you strangers, an’ eat an’ drink.  The winter air on the mountains is powerful nippin’ an’ your blood needs warmin’ often.”

The boys and the sergeant obeyed him literally and with energy.  Jarvis sat by approvingly, taking an occasional bite or drink with them.  Meanwhile they gathered valuable information from him.  A Northern commander named Garfield had defeated the Southern forces under Humphrey Marshall in a smart little battle at a place called Middle Creek.  Dick knew this Humphrey Marshall well.  He lived at Louisville and was a great friend of his uncle, Colonel Kenton.  He had been a brilliant and daring cavalry officer in the Mexican War, doing great deeds at Buena Vista, but now he was elderly and so enormously stout that he lacked efficiency.

Jarvis added that after their defeat at Middle Creek the Southerners had gathered their forces on or near the Cumberland River about Mill Spring and that they had ten thousand men.  Thomas with a strong Northern force, coming all the way from the central part of the state, was already deep in the mountains, preparing to meet him.

“Remember,” said Jarvis, “that I ain’t takin’ no sides in this war myself.  If people come along an’ ask me to tell what I know I tell it to ’em, be they Yank or Reb.  Now, I wish good luck to you, Mr. Mason, an’ I wish the same to your cousin, Mr. Kenton.”

Dick, Warner and the sergeant finished the refreshments and rose for the return journey.  They thanked Jarvis, and when they saw that he would take no pay, they did not insist, knowing that it would offend him.  Dick said good-bye to the ancient woman and once again she rose, put her hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes.

“Paul Cotter was a good man,” she said, “and you who have his blood in your veins are good, too.  I can see it in something that lies back in your eyes.”

She said not another word, but sat down in the chair and stared once more into the coals, dreaming of the far day when the great borderers saved her and others like her from the savages, and thinking little of the mighty war that raged at the base of her hills.

The boys and the sergeant rode fast on the return trail.  They knew that Major Hertford would push forward at all speed to join Thomas, whom they could now locate without much difficulty.  Jarvis and Ike had resumed their fence-mending, but when the trees hid the valley from them a mighty, rolling song came to the ears of Dick, Warner and the sergeant: 

  They bore him away when the day had fled,
  And the storm was rolling high,
  And they laid him down in his lonely bed
  By the light of an angry sky. 
  The lightning flashed, and the wild sea lashed
  The shore with its foaming wave,
  And the thunder passed on the rushing blast
  As it howled o’er the rover’s grave.

“That man’s no fool,” said Dick.

“No, he ain’t,” said the sergeant, with decision, “nor is that nephew Ike of his that he calls a lunkhead.  Did you notice, Mr. Mason, that the boy never spoke a word while we was there?  Them that don’t say anything never have anything to take back.”

They rode hard now, and soon reached Major Hertford with their news.  On the third day thereafter they entered a strong Union camp, commanded by a man named Garfield, the young officer who had won the victory at Middle Creek.