True To His Colors
"Certainly; but we don't need an army to do that. Our school battalion, if the boys were only united, could do it and not half try."
"If they were united?" repeated one of the girls. "You do not mean to say that there are traitors in that school?"
Rodney replied that was just what he did mean to say. He declared that the academy was a hotbed of treason, and Cole and Billings confirmed his words. The girls were surprised to hear it.
"And even the colonel hasn't the pluck of a cat or a mind of his own," continued Billings. "He doesn't seem to know where he stands."
"Every one in town wonders why that flag has been permitted to float so long, and now I know," said one of the girls. "The colonel is friendly to it; but still, if you young gentlemen had half the courage we have given you credit for, you would have pulled it down long ago."
Rodney winced. He did not like to confess that he and his friends had tried their best to haul the flag down, but the Union boys had prevented them from doing it; for he knew the girls would laugh at him. They might do even worse than that. They might tell him that he need not trouble himself to call upon them any more (for things had come to that pass already), so he brought forward the best excuse he could think of on the spur of the moment.
"But the colonel will not allow it," he protested. "He says it will be time enough to bother with the flag when we find out what the State is going to do."
"But I don't see how you can march under those colors when your own gallant Louisiana has followed South Carolina out of the Union."
"I confess we don't like it," said Cole, "but a good soldier always obeys orders, you know. Wait until the State acts, and then you shall hear from us."
"I hope to hear from you before that time, although this State is bound to go with the others. I should be ashamed to acknowledge that I live within her borders if she shows such a want of spirit as to be willing to remain in the Union after all that has happened. The next time you come to see me, Mr. Cole," said the young lady sweetly, "I shall expect you to tell me that that flag has been hauled down in spite of all opposition, and that our own Confederate flag has been hoisted in its place."
"So that's our flag, is it?" said Rodney, casting a glance of pride toward the Stars and Bars that waved from several buildings within the range of his vision. "I thought as much. When did it get here?"
"We received a score or more of them by this day's mail, and our patriotic citizens lost no time in giving them to the breeze," was the reply.
"But the trouble is, we haven't any flag of that sort at the academy," said Cole. "So how are we to run it up in place of the Stars and Stripes?"
"My sister and I will see that you have the flag, if you will promise to hoist it," answered one of the girls. "We are at work upon one now, and will have it ready for you to-morrow at this hour, provided you can tell us that the old flag has been hauled down. Tomorrow, mind. Shall we expect you?"
"I'll be around," replied Cole, but he did not talk as glibly as he usually did, for he was thinking about something else. To-morrow at that hour. By gracious! that was bringing the thing straight home to a fellow, wasn't it? That meant a fight, sure; and the Union boys were not only as brave as boys ever get to be, but their fists were as hard as so many bricks. Cole knew that by experience. And if he could not tell her that the old flag had been hauled down, he need not take the trouble to call at her house. The young lady did not say so, but Cole knew well enough that that was what she meant.
"The commandant is one traitor, but who are the others?" she asked, after a moment's pause. "You said in effect that the school is full of them. The colonel does not often honor us girls with his visits, but the young gentlemen do sometimes, and we should like to know who the traitors are, so that we can be at home or not, as circumstances seem to require. Give us their names, please."
Rodney's companions would have thought twice before complying with this request, but Rodney himself did not see anything surprising in it. The girls were ardent secessionists, and of course they did not care to associate with those who stood up for the Yankees and for the flag they worshiped. The cousin whom he had always loved as a brother was beneath contempt now, for he was a traitor to the South, and undeserving of the slightest show of respect from any one who had the least respect for himself.
"Well, there's that lovely relative of mine for one," said Rodney promptly.
The girls could hardly believe that they had heard aright. They looked at each other in silence for a moment, and then they looked at Rodney.
"I didn't think that Marcy Gray was such a coward," said one, at length.
"Oh, you are 'way off the track!" exclaimed Dick Graham, who, although he afterward went into the Confederate Army and became a partisan ranger, never forgot the warm friendship he cherished for Marcy Gray. "That fellow is nobody's coward, and you wouldn't think so if you could have seen him when – "
"Look here, Dick," interrupted Rodney, who was afraid that Marcy's friend was about to say something compromising. "It is very easy for a fellow to say that he is for the Union when he is so far away from the North that he can not, by any possible chance, be called upon to fight for the opinions he pretends to hold, but has Marcy the courage to show by his acts that he is sincere in what he says?"
"Well, yes; I think he has," answered Dick. "When you fellows had that fight over the flag – "
"That isn't what I mean," exclaimed Rodney, impatiently.
"What was it, Mr. Graham?" asked one of the girls, who rather wanted to see Marcy Gray's courage vindicated, if there were any way in which it could be done. "What did he do? Did you really have a fight at the academy over the flag? Go on, please, and tell us all about it."
Rodney tried to speak, but Dick was not to be put down. He knew that Rodney was determined to say something to his cousin's injury if he could, and Dick Graham was not the boy to stand by and see it done without raising his voice in protest.
"Yes; some of the boys tried their level best to get the flag," said
Dick, "but its defenders were much too numerous and strong for them.
During the struggle there were some middling heavy blows passed, and, if
I mistake not, Rodney came in for a few that he'll not soon forget."
Rodney tried to laugh it off as a joke, but it was easy to see that he was about as mad as he could hold.
"Now go on and describe the part you took in that fracas," said he, as soon as he could speak.
"Who? Me? I didn't take any part in it. I don't fight. I'm neutral. You see Missouri hasn't gone out of the Union yet, and I don't intend to make a move until she does. See? I was not saying a word for myself, but for Marcy, who isn't here to take his own part."
"What I want to get at is this," continued Rodney. "If Marcy is so devoted to the Union, why does he stay here, flinging his obnoxious doctrines in our faces every chance he gets? Why doesn't he go North and join the Yankees?"
"He doesn't fling his doctrines in our faces," Dick interposed. "He stands up for them when he thinks it necessary, and so would I if I believed as he does."
"I admire him for that," said one of the girls.
"Oh, do you?" exclaimed Rodney, who was sure of his ground now. "Will you continue to admire him when I tell you that he hoped the Yankees would send a fleet into Charleston harbor that would blow South Carolina out of water?"
No, the girls could not admire Marcy Gray or anybody else who talked that way. If that was his doctrine, he had better quit the South and go among those who believed as he did.
"I was sure you would say so; and that was the point I was trying to reach," continued Rodney. "That was what I meant when I asked if he had the courage to back up his opinions."
"I am sorry to hear that of Marcy," said one of the girls, and her face showed that she meant every word of it. "He is such a splendid horseman and looks so handsome riding with his battery! And to think that he sympathizes with our oppressors! I can't realize it. I must have a serious talk with him, for unless he comes over to our side, he will be liable to arrest if he stays here much longer."
"It's a wonder to me that he hasn't seen trouble of some sort before this time," observed Billings. "He doesn't haul in his shingle one inch, but blurts out his views wherever he happens to be, and the first thing he knows somebody will pop him over."
"I shouldn't like to be the one to try it," Dick Graham remarked. "Marcy will not take a whipping quietly."
"I didn't mean that he would get into trouble here in Barrington, although I am afraid he will, but with the government," said the girl. "One other thing our Congress did was to pass a law requiring all those who sympathize with the North to leave the limits of the Confederacy within ten days."
"But don't you know that this State hasn't joined the Confederacy yet?" asked the practical Dick.
"If I should forget it, you would be very likely to remind me of the fact," was the reply; "but she will join it before many days have passed, and then where will Marcy be?"
"That's the best news I have heard in a month," declared Rodney, speaking before he thought. Then, seeing that his companions looked surprised, he hastened to add: "I say it is good news, for when Marcy hears of it he will understand that he must quit his nonsense and come out boldly for one side or the other. If he is with us, all he has to do is to say so; and if he isn't, he'll have to pack up and clear out."
"Oh, we hope he'll not do that," said both the girls in a breath. "Tell him to come and see us, and we will turn him from the error of his ways. Here we are at our gate. Thanks for your escort."
"Why don't you ask us to come in?" inquired Cole.
"Because we have given you something to do first. Pull down that flag and run the banner of the Confederacy up in its place, and then you may come as often as you please."
"Well, shall I tell Marcy to keep his distance until he has made up his mind to hoist the right sort of colors?" said Rodney.
"By no means. We must have a talk with him, and if we fail to win him over, we shall know how to punish him."
"That was rather a snub for you, old fellow," said Billings, as the boys raised their caps to the girls and once more turned toward the post-office. "They are sweet on Marcy, and don't mean to throw him over just because you have taken a sudden dislike to him."
"It was a snub for Cole as well," replied Rodney, hotly. "He will never see the inside of Mr. Taylor's house again, for those girls have imposed upon him a task that is quite beyond his powers. Couldn't you get along without wagging your jaw so freely?" he demanded, turning fiercely upon Dick Graham. "For two cents you and I would mix up right here in the street."
"Why, what in the world did I say?" asked Dick, in reply.
"You disgraced the school by telling those girls, almost as plainly as you could speak it, that we Southerners are in the minority there."
"If she got that impression, she got a wrong one," said Dick quietly. "I said that the defenders of the flag were too many and too strong for you fellows who tried to haul it down, and that's the truth. I stood up for Marcy because I am his friend, and you ought to be."
"I am a friend to no boy, cousin or no cousin, who talks as he does," said Rodney spitefully. "I despise a traitor, and the fellow who sticks up for him – "
Dick stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, rested his clenched hands upon his hips, and waited for Rodney to finish the sentence. For a second or so it looked as though the two boys were going to "mix up" directly; but Cole and Billings interposed.
"This will never do," said the latter. "If you are determined to have a fight, hurry and get your mail, and then we'll go back to the academy and fight the Yankees and their sympathizers. That's what we've got to do tomorrow, if we run that new flag up on the tower, and we might as well get our hands in first as last. Cole, you go on with Dick, and Rodney and I will follow."
Dick laughingly declared that as he was not spoiling for a fight he could get on very well without an escort, but still he did not raise any objection when Cole took him by the arm and led him away. Rodney slowly followed, with Billings for a companion, the latter using his best arguments to make the stubborn Rodney see that he could not hope to gain anything by showing so much hostility toward his cousin, who was popular both at the academy and in the town, and that the Taylor girls, from whom they had just parted, didn't think any the more of him for what he had said. Rodney saw that plainly, and it was another thing that made him angry; but he was careful not to let Billings know it. He took no little pride in his horsemanship, and was confident that he made a very fine looking sergeant of artillery; but none of the girls had ever told him so, and he couldn't bear to hear Marcy praised either. He was envious, as well as jealous, and when Rodney got that way, he was in the right humor to do something desperate.
"That new law will fix him and Graham, too," he said to himself. "I'll take pains to call their attention to it the minute I get back to the academy, and if they don't take the hint and make themselves scarce about here, I will set somebody on their track. There are a good many traitors in and around Barrington, and I wonder that they haven't been driven out before this time. I'll rid the school of those two, I bet you; but before they go I'll pick a quarrel with them and whip them out of their boots."
This confident assertion recalls to mind something that was said by the Confederate General Rosser on the morning of the 9th of October, 1864, just previous to the beginning of the fight known in history as "Woodstock Races." Having formed his line of battle, Rosser sat on his horse watching the movements of his old schoolmate, General Custer, who was busy getting his own forces in shape to attack him. Finally Rosser turned to his staff and said:
"You see that officer down there? That is General Custer, of whom the Yanks are so proud, and I intend to give him the best whipping to-day he ever got; see if I don't."
When Custer was ready to fight he made his charge; the valiant Rosser fled before it, and never but once stopped running until he reached Mount Jackson, twenty-six miles away. It was a trial of speed, rather than a battle, and that is the reason the engagement is called "Woodstock Races." The Confederates lost everything they had that was carried on wheels, and the Union loss was but sixty killed and wounded. Rodney Gray was not as much of a braggart as Rosser was, but if he had tried to carry his threat into execution he might have been as badly whipped.
CHAPTER III
CHEERS FOR "THE STARS AND BARS."If any boy who reads this series of books believes that secession was the result of a sudden impulse on the part of the Southern people, he has but to look into his history to find that he is mistaken. They had not only been thinking about it for a long time, but, aided by some of Buchanan's treacherous cabinet officers, they had been preparing for it. The Secretary of the Navy ordered the best vessels in our little fleet to distant stations, so that they could not be called upon to help the government when the insurgents seized the forts that were scattered along the coast; and the Secretary of War took nearly a hundred and fifty thousand stand of arms out of Northern arsenals and sent them to the South. He did it openly and without any attempt at concealment, and the Southern papers publicly thanked him for so doing. The Mobile Register said, in so many words, that they were much obliged to Mr. Floyd for "disarming the North and equipping the South."
After such acts as these on the part of government officials, it is not surprising that private citizens began to take their local affairs into their own hands. A regular system of espionage and ostracism was established all over the South. Everybody who was known or suspected of being opposed to slavery and disunion was not only closely watched, but was denied admission to homes in which he had always been a welcome visitor. Free negroes were given to understand that they could either clear out, or remain and be sold into bondage. Northern men – even those who had long been engaged in business in the South, and whose interests were centered there – were looked upon and treated with contempt, and their lives were made miserable in every way that the exasperated and unreasonable people around them could think of.
But, of course, things did not stop here. These suspected persons very soon became the victims of open violence. Some were taken out of their houses at night and whipped; others were tarred and feathered; and more were hanged by self-appointed vigilance committees, or killed in personal encounters. Up to the time of which we write there had been none of this violence in and around Barrington, but it was coming now. Almost the first thing that attracted the attention of Rodney Gray and his companions when they went into the post-office was a notice that had been fastened upon the bulletin board. It took them a minute or two to elbow their way through the crowd of men and boys who were gathered in front of it, reading and commenting upon the startling intelligence it contained, and when they succeeded they read as follows:
IMPORTANT NOTICEAt a meeting of the citizens and voters of Barrington, held this day,
March 9, 1861, it was unanimously
Resolved: That the excitement at present existing among the people renders it prudent for us to appoint a committee of the citizens of Barrington to recommend what measures (if any) should be adopted for the purpose of suppressing any unlawful or riotous outbreak in the town; and that the following named are hereby appointed a "Committee of Safety" who are respectfully requested to adopt such measures, or to recommend any measures for adoption by the citizens generally, as may seem to them proper and necessary for the preservation of good order.
Then followed a long list, containing the names of nearly all the prominent and wealthy men of the place.
"Humph!" exclaimed Dick Graham, contemptuously. "The fellows who got this up wasted time and ink to no purpose. There has been no outbreak in Barrington, and none threatened."
"How does it come that you are so well posted, Dick?" said a friendly voice at his elbow; and when he faced about Dick's eyes met those of Mr. Riley, one of the men whose names appeared on the list. "The gentlemen who framed that resolution did not mean to convey the impression that there had been any riotous proceedings in and around Barrington," he continued. "But if they had desired to create an uproar and excite the fears of the women and children, they might have said that there has been an outbreak threatened; and it would have been nothing but the truth. You boys, who are all the while shut up in the academy, can not be expected to know all that is going on in the country."
"Who has threatened any outbreak?" inquired Dick incredulously. "And when is it coming off?"
"Look here," said Mr. Riley, lowering his voice. "You remember the John
Brown raid, don't you?"
"Seems to me I have heard something about it. But you are not afraid of him, are you?"
"I am not joking," replied Mr. Riley earnestly. "Brown laid out a regular campaign before he started in at Harper's Ferry. He had a map, and on it had marked several localities in which the negroes were greatly in excess of the whites. Those towns and villages were to be destroyed, after the blacks had been coaxed or forced into his army, and Barrington was one of them."
"Well, what of it?" exclaimed Dick. "He didn't get here, did he?"
"Of course he didn't; but he spread such a spirit of discontent among the niggers that we have been shaky ever since. And the events of the last few weeks do not tend to quiet our fears, I assure you."
"When is this insurrection, or whatever you call it, coming off?"
"We don't know when to expect it, but we mean to be ready for it at any hour of the day or night. We have positive evidence that there are about half a dozen too many Abolitionists, and altogether too many free niggers, in and around Barrington."
"When did you find it out?"
"We've always known it; but we never felt so very much afraid of them before. I don't mind telling you, although I should not want to post it on the town pump, that we have had spies out for the last three or four days."
"That's what I thought you were getting at. But who are they?"
"There's Bud Goble, for one."
"Aw, Great Scott!" exclaimed Dick, and even Rodney looked disgusted. "I hope you haven't put the least faith in anything that lazy, worthless fellow has said to you."
"He may be too lazy to earn an honest living, but he is far from worthless in an emergency like the present," replied the committeeman. "He is with us all over, and has been very active since these troubles began."
"I don't see why he should be so very active. He never owned the price of a pickaninny in his life. But I'll tell you what's a fact, Mr. Riley: Bud Goble has got something against every Northern man in Barrington and for miles outside of it, and he will do anything or swear to any number of lies – "
"Don't you give the Committee of Safety any credit for common-sense or prudence?" demanded Rodney, who, although he appeared to be listening to the conversation, was busy thinking over a project that had suddenly suggested itself to him. "You don't suppose that anything will be done to these suspected men until they have had a fair trial, do you?"
"That's the idea," said Mr. Riley, with a smile. "Rodney, you have your share of common-sense, whether the committee have or not."
"A fair trial?" repeated Dick, who was like Marcy Gray in that he never "pulled in his shingle one inch"; in other words, never backed down from his principles, no matter who might hear what he had to say about them. "Who'll try these suspected men? Judge Lynch; who will order them to be strung up before they can say a word in their own defense. I tell you such work is all wrong."
"Don't let your excitement run away with your reason, Dick," said Mr. Riley soothingly. "There's been no innocent person harmed yet, and, moreover, such a thing never happened in this county."
"No, but it is going on all over the South; and I tell you that there are plenty of people of the Bud Goble stamp who would do the same thing right here if they were not afraid," said Dick earnestly.
"Put him out! He's a traitor!" cried one of the academy boys; and "put him out," was echoed from all parts of the post-office. But the boys who uttered the words were all Dick Graham's friends, and an attempt to put him out would certainly have resulted disastrously to somebody.
"Of course I understand that this is all sport," said Mr. Riley. "But seriously, Dick, the time may come when it will be anything but safe for you to express your sentiments with so much freedom."
"I assure you I appreciate your kindness in giving me a friendly word of caution, and thank you for it," replied the boy, "but this is a free country, and I shall say what I think, regardless of consequences. Wait till the time for fighting comes and see – "
"See what?" interrupted Billings. "There isn't going to be any fighting."
"Don't fool yourself. There'll be fighting before this thing is over, and more than you redhot secessionists will want to see – mark that! And when it comes we'll see who will do the most of it, I or men like Bud Goble, who have taken advantage of this time of excitement to get innocent folks into trouble."
Having had his talk out Dick turned to work his way to the window to get his mail; but before he got there a wild shout arose from the crowd of students who blocked his path, and a moment afterward a brand new Confederate flag fluttered over their heads. Rodney Gray had received a package from home and this was what he found in it.
"I say, Graham," he exclaimed, as soon as he could make himself heard, "doesn't the sight of this make you ashamed of the sentiments you have just uttered?"