A Rebellion in Dixie
“By George! I tell you we are in for it,” said Leon, pulling the blankets up over him, “and I don’t know how we are going to come out. There are rebels all around us, and if they are as bad down here as they are up in Tennessee there won’t one of us come through alive. But I am armed, and I’ll see that some of them get as good as they send.”
It was daylight when Leon awoke, and after washing his hands and face in a basin outside the door he stood in front of the fireplace, before which the woman was engaged in cooking the breakfast, and looked up at the man’s rifle, which hung on some wooden pegs over the mantel. It was an ordinary muzzle-loading thing, and didn’t look as though it had been the death of anybody.
“That rifle has been too much for half a dozen men,” said the woman.
“Why, how did that happen?” asked Leon.
“It happened when they came to burn us out,” answered the woman. “They came one night and tried to call Josiah to the door, but he would not go. He took his rifle down, but he wouldn’t shoot until they did, and as he is a good shot, he hit every time. The next day we had to move, for they came with a larger body of men.”
“There is one thing that makes me think you are in a bad place,” said Leon. “You are right here close to the river which separates the two counties, and if anybody makes a raid over here they will strike you, sure. I think if that convention is held you had better come down to our place. We have room enough there to stow you away.”
“Oh, thank you. Perhaps you had better speak to Josiah about it.”
Josiah was out attending to his horses and cow, and Leon went out to him. He looked at him with more respect than he did the night before, for, in addition to burning the bridges, he had “got the better” of half a dozen men. He bade Leon a hearty good-morning, but the boy noticed that all the while he kept talking to him he kept his eyes fastened on the woods. Probably it was from the force of habit. He agreed with Leon that they were in a bad place to meet raids, and promised that after the convention came off he would see what he could do. He didn’t want to trespass on anybody until he had to.
Breakfast over, Leon brought his horse to the door, put on his saddle and bridle and bid good-bye to the family from Tennessee, and rode off. He was two days more on his route, and on the third day he turned his horse toward home. He reached it without any mishap, and his mother was glad to see him, judging by the hug she gave him. His father had arrived the night before, but the stories he had to tell didn’t compare with Leon’s. Of course his mother was shocked when she learned that Josiah (Leon did not know what else to call him) had shot so many men before he left Tennessee, but she readily agreed to shelter his wife and children.
“I never thought to ask him his name,” said Leon, “but I will ask him down to the convention. He was dead in favor of it, and said he would be there. I tell you that man has passed through a heap. He couldn’t talk to me without running his eyes over the woods to see if there was anybody coming.”
On the next day but one was the time of the convention, and at an early hour Mr. Sprague and Leon mounted their horses and set out for Ellisville. On the way they picked up a good many more, both afoot and on horseback, and by the time they reached their destination they numbered fifty or more. They made their way at once to the church, and found themselves surrounded by a formidable body of men, all of whom were armed with rifles. There must have been a thousand men there, and there was not a secessionist to be seen in the party. Shortly afterward Nathan Knight arrived. He bid good-morning to the people right and left, and went into the church, whither he was followed by all the building would hold. Those who couldn’t get in raised the windows on the outside and settled themselves down to hear what was going to happen.
Nathan Knight was a large man, with gray whiskers and an eye that seemed to look right through you. But for all that his face was kindly, and if you got broken up in business and wanted help, Nathan Knight was the man to go to. He took his seat in the pulpit, just where he knew the folks would send him, took off his hat and drew his handkerchief across his forehead. His meeting was not conducted according to order, but those who were there understood it.
“Gentlemen will please come to order,” said he. “Are there any of us who are opposed to taking this county out of the State of Mississippi? If there is, let him now speak or hereafter hold his peace.”
Each man gazed into the face of his neighbor; but each one knew that the one he looked at was as much in favor of secession as he was himself. Finally, some one in the back part of the church called out:
“Nathan, there ain’t nary a rebel here.”
“I am glad to hear it,” said Mr. Knight. “But there are some around in the county, and you want to be careful how you deal with them. I will now appoint a committee of six to draw up a series of resolutions of secession. They will go over to the hotel and come back when they get done.”
Mr. Knight had evidently been thinking of this matter before for he appointed the committee without hesitation, and among them was the name of Mr. Sprague. They were all men who would not say a thing they did not mean, and as they were about to go out the president beckoned Mr. Sprague to his desk and placed a piece of paper in his hands.
“There’s some resolutions I drew up after thinking the matter over,” said he. “Perhaps it will serve as a model to you. You can amend them or leave them out entirely, as suits you best.”
When the committee had retired Mr. Knight got up, and for the next half-hour proceeded to arraign the Confederate States and praise the Union, his remarks calling forth loud and long-continued applause. He took the ground that it was a “geographical impossibility” to conquer Jones county, because, the inhabitants being lumbermen, it would be easy for them to slip into the woods, and when there nobody but a raftsman could find them. He kept his speech going until the committee were seen coming back. Mr. Sprague made his way to the desk, and amid the most impressive silence read the resolutions of secession as follows:
Whereas, The State of Mississippi has seen fit to withdraw from the Federal Union for reasons which appear justifiable;
And whereas, We, the citizens of Jones county, claim the same right, thinking our grievances are sufficient by reason of an unjust law passed by Congress of the Confederate States of America, forcing us to go to distant parts, etc., etc.;
Therefore be it resolved, That we sever the union heretofore existing between Jones county and the State of Mississippi, and proclaim our independence of said State and the Confederate States of America; and we solemnly call upon Almighty God to witness and bless such act.
When Mr. Sprague ceased reading, the applause which shook the building was long and loud. Not satisfied with that, some of the raftsmen fired off their guns, and for the next five or ten minutes it was impossible to do anything inside the church. By that time the excitement had somewhat died out, and then the president asked if there was any debate on the matter, but no one had anything to say. Knowing that those six men had the good of the county at heart, there was not one who had anything to say against them. Mr. Knight expressed himself pleased, and was about to announce that the resolutions were passed, when somebody on the outside of the building called out:
“Nathan, here’s a couple of rebels out here.”
“What are they doing out there?” asked the president, in surprise.
“I don’t know. They have just come up here. It looks to me like they were going to recruit.”
“Well, fetch them in here. Now, boys, not a word out of you. I will do the talking, and if you have any questions to ask, you can ask them; but don’t all talk at once.”
Mr. Knight settled back in his chair and the most profound silence ensued. Finally the crowd about the door gave way as the rebels and their escort approached, and the Confederates, seeing so many men standing there with their hats all off, courteously took off their own. They kept on until they got up to the desk, and then Mr. Knight drew up chairs for them to be seated.
“Now, gentlemen, what brought you up here?” asked the president.
“We came up here to recruit,” replied the ranking officer. “I am glad to see so many of you here, for it will save us the trouble of hunting you up.”
“Will you be kind enough to read that?” said Mr. Knight, unfolding the paper on which the resolutions were written and passing it over to the officer.
The official took the paper, and as he read his eyes opened with surprise. When he had got through with it he passed it over to his subordinate, and then turned and looked at the men near him. He was satisfied that there was not a man there who did not believe every word of those resolutions. The officer had nothing to fear now – he was the first recruiting official that ever came there – but after he got away he would not come back at any price.
“These are not all your men?” said he.
“No, sir. We have not more than three hundred men, but these extra parties have come in with their families at odd times. And every man you see is a Union man.”
“My friend, you are making a great mistake,” began the officer.
“We are ready to stand by it, sir.”
“Do you suppose the Confederates will stand by and allow you to take this county out of the State, to be an odd sheep in the flock?” continued the officer. “The first thing you know you will be overrun with men, and you won’t have a house to go into.”
“What will we be doing all that time?”
“Oh, I suppose you will fight, but it won’t do you any good. The Confederates can send twenty thousand men in here.”
“We don’t care if they send forty thousand,” replied the president. “Whatever you send we’ll fight.”
The men who were crowded in the church and gathered about the windows couldn’t stand it any longer. They broke out into loud applause, which continued for some minutes. When they got through, the officer evidently thought they were in earnest.
“We have a thousand men here, and when we get into the swamp we are willing to meet five thousand,” continued Mr. Knight. “You can’t conquer us.”
“What will you do for grub?”
“We’ll steal it,” shouted one of the men; and the answer was so droll and corresponded so entirely with the thoughts of the men who were standing around, that the whole assembly burst into laughter. Even the enrolling officers joined in.
“I suppose you can do that, of course,” said he, “but supposing the escort is too strong to be successfully attacked?”
“We don’t borrow any trouble on that score,” said Mr. Knight. “We haven’t got all the men we are going to have. You see how they are coming in now. But you are interrupting us, and we shall have to bid you good-bye. You see very plainly that you can’t raise any men here for the Confederate army. Another thing we’ll tell you, you are the first to come in, and you will be the last to go out.”
“Do you mean to say that you will kill any enrolling officers who come here?”
“That’s just what I mean to say. We don’t want them here.”
“Well,” said the official, rising to his feet, “we’ll go, but we won’t be the last officers to come in here. I will tell you that very plainly. You mustn’t think that the Confederates are going to allow you to have your own way in this matter. It beats anything I ever heard of.”
“We are aware of that, and that’s what makes us think we are going to go through with it. I will bid you good-bye, gentlemen.”
The men divided right and left to allow the rebels a chance to get out, and when they had passed out beyond the door the president proceeded to call the meeting to order.
“I am pleased with the way you obeyed my commands,” said Mr. Knight. “If you will obey as promptly as that, we are going to be hard to whip. The next thing is to elect a president.”
“I nominate Nathan Knight as president of the Jones County Confederacy,” shouted a man near the door.
“We ought to have a ballot for that,” said Mr. Knight.
“We don’t need no ballot. It takes too much time. Can I get a second to that?”
He could and he did. It seemed as if every man in the house seconded the motion. Mr. Sprague put the vote before the house, and it was carried unanimously. Mr. Knight did not stop to make a speech, but said the next vote would be for vice-president, and Mr. Sprague was nominated.
“Hold on, there,” shouted a voice. “We don’t want Mr. Sprague for vice-president. We want him for secretary of war. If there is any man who can put us fellows where we can do the most good in a fight Mr. Sprague is the chap.”
And so it was all through the convention. There wasn’t a ballot taken for anything, and no man thought of declining an office. By four o’clock the work was all done, and then Mr. Knight thought of something else.
“There is one thing more that I want the convention to decide on,” said he. “It is a ticklish piece of business, but we have got to do it. Jeff Davis has been making things very uncomfortable for our fellows out there in the Confederacy by telling them that they have got to light out or go into the army; now, what’s to hinder us from doing the same thing? There are many rebels about here – ”
“And I say let’s get rid of them,” said a voice. “I know one fellow who is going around all the time talking secession, and if the meeting says the word I’ll go to him and tell him he had better dig out. The county will be a heap happier if he ain’t in it.”
“Let’s all go in a body,” said another voice.
“That’s what I say,” said a chorus of half a dozen men.
“I think myself that would be the better way,” said the president. “If a lot of us get together and call upon a man, he will think we are in dead earnest. Give them time to take what they want, and then escort them out of the county. Don’t leave a rebel behind you. There being no further business, the convention stands adjourned, to meet again upon call.”
And where was Leon Sprague all this time? He was sitting in the front seat, where he could hear all that was going on. He felt proud when his father was elected secretary of war. He supposed, of course, that it was his business to post men in battle, but he learned better after a while. He was particularly anxious about escorting the rebels out of the county, and as soon as the convention adjourned he hurried out to find Tom Howe. As he was hurrying through the door, whom should he run against but Josiah – the “man who had seen a heap,” and who “got the best of half a dozen men.” He stood with his rifle hugged up close to him as if it were an old friend and he did not want to part from it.
CHAPTER III
“A WORD IN YOUR EAR.”
“Why, Josiah, I am glad to see you,” said Leon, advancing and shaking hands with the man. “The rebels haven’t raided you yet? Look here, what is your name? I forgot to ask you when I was up to your house.”
“Giddings – Josiah Giddings,” answered the man. “No, the rebels have not raided me yet, but I am mighty dubious about them.”
“Well, I want to make you acquainted with my father,” said Leon. “He will give your wife protection at his house. We have a negro cabin there that is much more comfortable than the one you live in now, for it doesn’t leak. And there is plenty of pasturage there for your horse and cow.”
Leon drew up alongside of Giddings and in a few minutes his father came out. The introduction was given, and after a few commonplace remarks Mr. Sprague inquired how he liked the resolutions.
“They ain’t strong enough,” said Giddings. “If you had two brothers in jail waiting for their death-warrant, I reckon you would put in more language than you did.”
“Where is that?” inquired Mr. Knight, who came out just at that moment.
“Up in Tennessee mountains. My brothers were engaged in bridge burning, and now they have got to suffer death for it.”
Leon waited just long enough to see that Giddings was in a fair way to make the acquaintance of the principal men of the county, and then hastened out to find Tom Howe. After looking all about, he discovered him sitting under the shade of an oak eating a lunch.
“Hallo, Leon; have some,” was the way in which he greeted the new-comer. “It’s mighty good, I tell you – chicken and apple pie.”
“A person to look at your lunch wouldn’t think that we Union fellows would be so hard up for grub,” said Leon, seating himself on the ground by Tom’s side. “You heard what that man said, in reply to the enrolling officer, that if we got short of provisions we would steal them? But I want to talk to you about driving those rebels away from here.”
“I know one who will get out of the county with once telling,” said Tom.
“Who is it?”
“Carl Swayne.”
“That’s just the fellow I was thinking of,” said Leon, spitefully. “He told me the other day that if we ran into the swamp it would not take him long to show them where we were.”
“And he told me that he wished I had been smashed up in that jam while I was about it, for then there would be one Union man less in the world,” said Tom. “I’ll never forget him for that.”
“Well, you come around to the house early to-morrow morning, and we will go up and send him off. I see father is getting ready to go home, so I must go. So-long.”
Leon mounted his horse and started on a lope after his father, but when he came up with him he found him surrounded by a lot of men and boys who were talking loudly of the secession resolutions, finding no end of fault with the Confederate Government, and praising the Union.
“They won’t get me, no matter which way they turn,” said one of the men, who lived away off in the swamp. “I live two miles from everybody, and right there is where the fight is going to take place. The river in front of my house is so narrow that you can throw a stone across it anywhere, and for a mile above and below the house it spreads out into a swamp that they couldn’t get across to save their necks.”
“So you really think there is going to be a fight, do you?” inquired Mr. Sprague.
“Oh, sure. It’s just as that enrolling officer said. The Confederates ain’t a-going to leave us to be the black sheep in the flock. We are going to see some fun before we get through with this.”
That was the opinion of all the men, and they concluded, too, that the best place to hold the fight would be right there in front of this man’s house. “But I’ll tell you what’s a fact,” said Giddings, “you will have to look out for your wife and children. The rebels will make short work of them if they get hold of them.”
“The swamp is big,” said the man. “If they get out in there I will risk the rebels getting hold of them.”
Then men and boys dropped off one after the other when they came to the cross-roads that led to their homes, and by the time Mr. Sprague reached his home there were but few men besides Giddings left. The latter got off his horse at the gate and went in to take a view of the cabin in which Mr. Sprague told him he could live until the trouble was all over, and he straightway came to the conclusion that it was a much better house than the one he now occupied.
“You see there was nobody there to tell me that I could go into that house or I could stay out of it,” said Giddings. “It wasn’t occupied, and so I went into it, and sometimes when it rains you might just as well be outside. If it suits you, I will come here to-morrow.”
Mr. Sprague told him that the sooner he came the better; but Giddings declined an invitation to supper, because he knew his wife was waiting for him, so he got on his horse and rode off.
“It kinder runs in my mind that that man Giddings will be a good fellow to tie to,” said Mr. Sprague, as he drew his chair up to the table. “There’s no end to the way he hates the rebels, and it’s my opinion that when he shoots at them he will shoot to kill.”
“But do you really think there is going to be a fight?” inquired his wife. She asked this in a very indifferent manner, as if she did not care whether it came or not. She had got used to thinking of such things.
Mr. Sprague, by way of reply, told her all about the convention, and described to her the visit of the enrolling officers who had come up there to enlist men for the Confederate army.
“Did they get any?” inquired Mrs. Sprague.
“Not much. There were a thousand men there under arms, and that is rather more than two men want to handle. They know all about our plans, for Knight showed them the resolutions. Of course, they are going back to their headquarters, and are going to make a fuss about it.”
“I tell you it won’t be long now before we shall see some Confederate soldiers up here, and I wonder if I dare shoot at any of them?” said Leon. “If they will let me alone I believe I’ll let them alone.”
“How about those rebels that we are going to drive away from here to-morrow?” asked his father. “I think I have heard you say something pretty rough against Carl Swayne.”
“Well, that’s a different matter. Carl won’t let me alone, and I am determined that hereafter I am going to live in peace. He told Tom Howe that he wished he had been jammed up in that log heap, and I don’t like to have people talk that way.”
Early the next morning Mr. Sprague’s family were up and stirring. Leon was surprised when he looked at his father. There was a determined expression on his face, and the boy became aware that he was about to engage in an enterprise that promised at some future time to bring him no end of trouble. Leon took his cue from it, and from that time he was not so joyous as he had been. He took his revolver out, shot it at a mark, and then proceeded to load it very carefully. There was only a man and a boy and two women in the family he intended to send out of the county, and Leon could not understand that determined look on his father’s face. When he sat down at the breakfast-table he asked him about it.
“Father, you seem to think you are going to have a handful in sending that Swayne family away from among their friends,” said he. “What do you look for?”
“I don’t look for anything now,” said Mr. Sprague. “There will be a time when they will come back. Old man Swayne is a fighter, and it will stand us well in hand to get rid of him entirely.”
The conversation was dropped there, and they ate breakfast in silence. Before it was fairly ended the five men on whom Mr. Sprague was depending to assist him stepped up on the porch and came into the house. They were all invited to sit down and take another breakfast, but all declined, having broken their fast several hours before.
“You see, Mrs. Sprague, we got an order from the Secretary of War, and we’ve got to be on hand,” said one of the men. “It would not do to go back on anything he tells us.”
“I don’t know what they put me in for that office for,” said Mr. Sprague. “I don’t see that I have got anything to do.”
“Well, wait until it comes to fighting, and then you will find plenty to do. Now if you are all ready we’ll go on,” said the man, forgetting that he was giving orders to his superior officer. “We can’t get rid of that Swayne family any too quick. They’re all the time boasting and bragging of what they intend to do, and now we will give them a chance.”
Leon found opportunity to kiss his mother good-bye, and when he went out on the porch, where Tom Howe was sitting and waiting for him, they fell in behind the men, who shouldered their rifles and marched at a brisk pace toward Mr. Swayne’s house. There was no attempt at military movement, for there was not one in the party who knew anything about it, but they went ahead just as if they were going hog-hunting in the woods. In due time they came to a cross-roads which led down to Swayne’s house, and here they stopped, for there was something that drew their attention and angered them not a little. Before they left Ellisville, on the day of the convention, Mr. Knight had given several copies of the resolutions to men living in different parts of the county, with the request that they should nail them up on trees (there was no printing-press in the county), in order to give those who were not there timely notice of what they had done. The man who served this notice performed his duty, for the tacks were in the tree plain enough, but it hadn’t been able to do much good. The notice had been torn down and the pieces scattered about on the ground.