A Rebellion in Dixie
“Well, I do think in my soul!” began one of the men, “he wasn’t going to let anybody see it, was he?”
“Look here,” exclaimed Leon, who had grown wonderfully sharp sighted of late; “I know who did it. It was that miserable Carl Swayne. Do you not see his footprints here in the dust?”
“That’s so. Now what shall we do with him? Sprague, you are Secretary of War, and you ought to be able to say what shall be done with him. Knight never thought yesterday, when he gave out those resolutions, that somebody would go to work and pull them down.”
Meanwhile Leon had been busy gathering up the torn fragments of the resolution that were scattered around. When he got them together he compared them and saw they were all there.
“I’ll fix him,” said he. “And I’ll make him so sorry that he ever tore this down that he’ll go by a resolution the next time he sees it.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ll make him write it over again and come here and put it up,” said Leon, savagely.
“That’s the idea,” said Tom Howe. “He pulled it down, and of course he must put it up. I’ll be close at your heels when you are doing it.”
Mr. Sprague said nothing, but Leon noticed that the look on his face got deeper than ever. He led the way at increased speed toward Swayne’s house, and in a few minutes turned through the carriageway and saw Mr. Swayne and his nephew, Carl, sitting on the front porch. They evidently grew alarmed at seeing them, for they arose from their chairs and held on to the backs of them.
“Good morning,” said Swayne, and his voice trembled and his hand shook as he hauled up some chairs for them to seat themselves. “I did not expect to see so many of you here this fine morning.”
“We have no time to sit down,” said Mr. Sprague, who was supposed to do all the talking. “You are a rebel, are you not?”
“Well – yes; that is it depends on what you call a rebel,” said Mr. Swayne, trying to laugh at his own wit. “I am opposed to your trying to take this county out of the State; because why – ”
“So I supposed. We have come here to tell you that you can pack up and leave this county as soon as you please. We don’t want to hear any argument about it.”
“Why – why, where shall I go to?” exclaimed Swayne, while the boy turned whiter than ever. “If I leave here, I leave everything I have got behind me.”
“We will give you an hour to pack up things. If you are in the house at the end of that time, we shall set fire to it.”
“Well, now, see here,” said Swayne, who grew more frightened than ever; “I can’t pack up in an hour – ”
“I have told you just what I intend to do,” said Mr. Sprague, consulting his watch. “It is now ten o’clock. If you are in here at eleven we shall set the house going. If you are out of it in that time, why, we’ll save it. You want to make up your mind in a hurry.”
“Of all the brazen-faced fellows I ever saw you are the beat,” said Swayne, his fear giving place to anger. “I wish I had half a dozen Confederate soldiers here to protect me.”
“By gum! We’ll set the house a-going before you get out of it,” said one of Mr. Sprague’s men. “You ain’t a-going to talk to us like that.”
“One moment, Bud. We’ll sit down here on the porch until he gets through being mad, and then maybe he’ll pack up. You had better go, Swayne, for as sure as we are sitting on this porch, so sure will we set fire to it.”
In the meantime Leon and Tom had stood close together, and as Carl flounced into the house after his uncle, the two bounded up the steps and went up to the frightened boy.
“A word in your ear,” said Leon.
“Well, I don’t want anything to do with you,” said Carl, almost ready to cry when he found himself driven away from his home. “A man who will do as you have done has no business with a white person.”
“One moment,” said Leon, while Tom cocked his gun and brought it to bear on Carl’s head. “That brings you to your senses, don’t it? Here’s a resolution of secession that my father got up yesterday, and which was left on a tree down here, and I found it torn up and strewn on the ground. Did you have a hand in it?”
“Say, Tom, I want you to turn that gun the other way,” said Carl, who dared not move for fear that the rifle would still be pointed at him.
“Did you have a hand in it?” repeated Leon.
“Yes, I did,” said Carl, who, remembering that his uncle had got off easy by showing some grit, now resolved to show a little himself. “I will tear up every one you put there.”
“Well, I want you to go into the house and bring out some writing materials, and sit down at this table here on the porch and draw up a full copy of this resolution,” said Leon; and Carl had never heard him speak so before. As he spoke he drew a revolver from his pocket.
“I can’t write as well as that,” stammered Carl, who saw that he had got to do something very soon. “I wish you would put that revolver away. You don’t know how it worries me to have those things in sight.”
“You can write well enough. Go and get the pen and ink. And mind you, you want to be out here in short order, or we will be in there after you.”
Carl hurried into the house, while Tom uncocked his gun and leaned upon it, and Leon put his revolver into his pocket. They didn’t think they would have any more use for them. Carl went at once to the room in which his aunt was busy packing up some of her clothes, and the face he brought with him was enough to attract anybody’s attention.
“Well, Carl, this is pretty rough, ain’t it?” said his uncle, who was engaged in getting some of his own things together.
“I should say it was,” whimpered Carl. “Are you not going to be revenged on these fellows?”
“We’ll be revenged on them so quick that they won’t know it,” said his aunt, in a husky voice. She didn’t cry, but her hands trembled and her face was very white.
“Where are your writing materials, aunt? That little Leon Sprague is going to make me write out those resolutions I tore down. I wish, with uncle, that we had some half a dozen Confederate soldiers here. Wouldn’t we make a scattering among them?”
“Carl, you can’t have those writing materials,” said his aunt, who was struck motionless with surprise. “Tell him that we haven’t got any in the house. The young jackanapes! Where’s your rifle, that you don’t use it? I wish I were a man for about twenty minutes. There wouldn’t be so many of them as there are now.”
“But, aunt, they have got fire-arms, and they pulled them on me,” said Carl. “If I don’t get them out there very soon they will come after me.”
“You will find them in the top bureau drawer,” said his aunt, who began to think it was necessary to show a little speed. “Wait until I get my things all together and get out there, I will give them a piece of my mind.”
“Now, Lydia, you want to be mighty careful what you say out there,” said her husband. “They have got weapons, and they had just as soon use them as not. It is a pretty piece of business, this allowing strangers to drive us away from our home, but I tell you we’ll have revenge for it sooner or later. Pack up all your things in a hurry, for we have an hour left us in which to save our home.”
Carl, seeing that his uncle had no way to propose for him to get out of making a copy of that secession resolution, hunted up the writing materials as soon as he could, and went out on the porch with them. He found Leon and Tom there, and they were getting impatient.
“Look here,” said the former, “if you want to help your uncle get his things together you will move a little spryer than that. Now, sit down at this table and make out a full copy of this paper, just as it was when you pulled it down.”
“I’ll bet you won’t always have things all your own way,” said Carl, as he seated himself and removed the stopper from the ink-bottle. “You don’t suppose we’ll come back, do you?”
“I suppose you will, and that you will have men with you,” said Leon. “But you must bring all of two thousand men to put this rebellion down. Don’t let’s have any more talk. Go on and write out that paper.”
“And remember, it’s got to be the same as it was there,” said Tom, when he saw Carl arrange the pieces without reference to what came after them. “If you don’t, you will have to write it over again.”
While Carl was busy with his copying his uncle and aunt came out on the porch. They didn’t say a word, but brought with them a large bundle of clothing that they wanted to save. Aunt Lydia showed that she would have annihilated Mr. Sprague if she could, for the glance she cast upon him was full of hate. Mr. Swayne then took a horn down from a nail under the porch and blew two long blasts upon it. That was a signal to let the field-hands know that they were wanted. Presently the field-hands came up, a half a dozen of them, and although they may have been very smart negroes, the clothing which they wore did not proclaim the fact. There was hardly a piece of cloth on them that wasn’t patched until it was almost ready to drop off their persons. They looked on in surprise when they saw so many Union men there (they used to say that the darkies were rather blunt in such matters, and that they didn’t know who the Union men were), and saw the piles of clothing that had been brought out, but the first words their master spoke to them cleared everything up.
“We’ve got to go away from home now, or these men are going to burn it,” said Mr. Swayne. “Hitch those mules to the lumber-wagons and bring them up here. Be in a hurry, now, for we have no time to waste.”
The darkies rolled their eyes in great astonishment, and then went about their work with alacrity. In a few minutes the wagons were driven up to the door, and the darkies began to pile in the clothes. While Mr. Sprague was watching them he became aware that somebody was trying to attract his attention. A pebble thrown by a friendly hand hit him on the shoulder. He faced about, and saw one of the darkies behind the house. When he saw Mr. Sprague looking at him he beckoned to him to come where he was.
CHAPTER IV
CARL BRINGS NEWS
“Say, Marse Sprague, is you Union men going to burn dese houses ober deir heads?” began the darky, so excited that he could scarcely stand still.
“We have given them an hour to take their things out,” said Mr. Sprague. “If they don’t take them out in that time we’ll set the house a-going. If they get all their things out and loaded in the wagons we’ll save the house, so that they can have something to live in when these troubles are all over.”
“Whar do you reckon dey’ll go if dey get the things all tooken out?” asked the negro.
“I don’t know where they will go; over into the next county, probably. But what makes you so anxious?”
“Well, say, Marse Sprague, I don’t care to go ober into the next county wid ’em. Dey’s rebels ober dere.”
“So I have heard.”
“Well, I don’t want to go among dose rebels ’cause I won’t get no freedom. Dey say we’ll get it in a little while if we stays here among dese Union men.”
“Who told you that?”
“Your own Mose told me dat, sah.”
“Is Mose going to take his freedom when he can get it?”
“Sah? No, sah. He say he’s got a Marse who don’t stripe his jacket none, and he ain’t a-going to look at his freedom. I tell you, I don’t care to go ober into dat oder county wid dem people here.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“We-uns didn’t know what to do about it. If we slip away from dem while dey are going ober dar can dey catch us?”
“I don’t know whether they can or not. There’s been an Emancipation Proclamation issued by Abraham Lincoln, saying that if they don’t quit their rebellion in six months he will declare their niggers all free.”
“Dat’s just what I want to get at, sah,” said the negro, pounding his knees and shaking his head as if he were overjoyed to hear it. “Dat’s just what I want, sah. De rebels ain’t a-going to go and get up such a ’bellion, and den go and give it up ’cause somebody tells ’em to. I ain’t a-going into dat oder county, and the first thing Marse Swayne knows my folks and me will be missing.”
“Well, you have got to depend on yourself,” said Mr. Sprague. “I cannot help you if you do run away from them.”
“I knows dat mighty well. But you just watch out and see if you hain’t got more black folks up to your plantation dan you ought to have. You is a Union man and I know it, and you ain’t a-going to give me up just ’cause Marse Swayne says so.”
The negro started one way because he heard somebody calling him, and Mr. Sprague joined the men on the porch feeling as if he had a big responsibility resting upon him. He didn’t agree to take all the darkies in the county who might make up their minds to run away from their masters, and how was he going to support them all and find work for them to do?
“I tell you, this thing is coming to a head,” said Mr. Sprague to the man who sat next to him. “You remember what Stephens said about having a Government whose cornerstone should be slavery?”
The man remembered it perfectly. They used to get Confederate papers when the war first broke out, but now that they were in rebellion, and the postmaster was a rebel, they didn’t get a sight of one. The man who had charge of the office removed to Mobile as soon as he saw how things were going, and since then there had not been any post-office.
“Well, sir, old Cuff has just been talking to me, and he thinks of running away. He says that if he goes over into the other county he won’t get his freedom.”
“Good” said the man. “I am glad of it. We’ll see how their ‘corner-stone’ is going to hold out when they get their Confederacy. But they ain’t a-going to whip.”
“But this old Cuff thinks I am going to support him,” said Mr. Sprague. “I haven’t got any work for him to do.”
“Send him into the woods to cut logs for you,” said the man.
“I might do that, but I don’t see where I am going to find market for them. But I will get along somehow. Well, half an hour is gone, and they haven’t got many things out yet. Leon and Tom seem to be making it all right with Carl, don’t they?”
The two boys referred to stood patiently by until the resolutions were complete; then Tom took his copy and Leon fastened his eyes upon the torn manuscript and waited for him to read it. It was all correct; there wasn’t a mistake in it.
“You write a pretty good hand for a boy who hasn’t been to school more than you have,” said Leon.
“Keep your compliments for them that need them,” said Carl, snappishly. “I don’t care to hear them.”
“You haven’t got through with this business yet,” said Leon, in a voice which he meant should carry conviction with it. “You found this resolution on a tree, and you tore it down so that people couldn’t see it. I intend that you shall go back and post this thing up there.”
“But you told me I should have to help my uncle carry out his things,” said Carl, anxious to shirk all the responsibility he could.
“Oh, we’ll wait until you carry out your things,” said Leon, with a smile. “You are going right by the tree, and it won’t hurt you at all to stop and nail this thing up.”
Carl gathered up the pen and ink and disappeared in the house, and Leon and Tom went down the steps to join the men who were sitting there.
“I got it, but I had hard work in getting it, too,” said Leon. “How much longer time has he got?”
“Not quite fifteen minutes,” said Mr. Sprague.
“And I see he is hustling things more lively than he did. You won’t start the fire when the quarter of an hour is up, seeing that he is doing the best he can to get them out?”
“Oh, no. I wanted to see him get to work, that is all.”
At the end of half an hour the furniture and clothes they intended to take with them had been loaded on the wagons, and then the women began to slam the blinds and fasten them securely. When Mr. Swayne came out on the porch he locked that door and put the key into his pocket.
“We have got some things in there yet, but we don’t want these traitors to have them,” said his wife, in a tone which was intended very plainly for the ears of Mr. Sprague and his friends. “Let them go somewhere else and steal somebody else poor.”
Mr. Swayne did not pay any attention to it. He buttoned up the key in his pocket, and looked all around as if he were searching for someone. At last he called out:
“Cuff! Where is that lazy nigger Cuff? Come here this minute, or I will stripe your jacket till you can’t rest.”
Mr. Sprague was surprised. He thought it very likely that he could tell Mr. Swayne what had become of the negro Cuff. He had been sent with all his companions to the quarters to bring some clothes and other things they wanted to save, and he hadn’t showed up since. It would be very easy for them to slip through the cornfield, and so into the woods, and that was right where Cuff was when his master was calling him.
“Carl, suppose you run down to the quarters and hurry them up,” said his uncle. “We want to get away from here as soon as we can. There’s too many Union people here.”
The man who had threatened to burn the house before they got out of it was sitting on the steps a little way from Mr. Sprague. He wiggled and twisted and wanted to say something in return, but there was his superior officer who didn’t say anything, and he thought he would hold in for a better opportunity. Carl was away about fifteen minutes, and when he came back his face bore evidence that he was utterly confounded.
“There ain’t a nigger about the quarters,” said he. “Their clothes, both bedding and wearing apparel, are gone, and that proves that they have run away.”
“That’s the first time I ever had a nigger serve me that way,” said Mr. Swayne, pacing up and down the porch. “Run away, have they? If I ever get my hands on them I’ll make it awfully uneasy for them to lie down, now I tell you. Did you follow them into the woods to see where they went?”
“No, I didn’t. I saw their tracks leading through the cornfield, and then I came home to report the matter to you. Those niggers think they are going to get their freedom now.”
“Yes, and you might have expected it,” said his aunt, turning her flashing eyes upon Mr. Sprague. “What are these Union men here for if it isn’t to coax the niggers away from an honest Confederate?”
“Mrs. Swayne, we had no hand in inducing your negroes to run away from you,” said Mr. Sprague, who now began to get angry. “They said they were not going into the other county with you, and I told them that they must depend entirely upon themselves.”
“By gum! You want to see your house go before you get away from it,” said the man who had threatened to burn them out. “Any more such talk as that and I’ll set her a-going; by gum I will.”
“Carl, you will have to do some driving for us, for we can’t stop to hunt the niggers,” said Mr. Swayne.
“Oh, now, I didn’t agree to do driving,” whined Carl. “Let’s stop and go into the woods after them.”
“You have already got your things loaded on the wagons, and I must ask you to drive on,” said Mr. Sprague. “It is my duty to stay by you until you get beyond Ellisville.”
“Carl, jump on that wagon and drive after me,” said Mr. Swayne. “I don’t want to hear any more argument about it.”
“Tom, you haven’t got any horse, and I advise you to get into that wagon with Carl,” said Leon. “When you come to the tree on which the resolution was posted, make him get out and post this one in its place. He’ll object, but we can’t help it.”
While Carl was tying his riding-horse behind the wagon Tom climbed in and seated himself on the table which had been placed there for one of the negroes who had gone off with Cuff. Carl saw what he was doing, but didn’t make any fuss about it. He had arrived at his uncle’s conclusion that the best thing they could do was to take no notice of the Union men. By doing that they would irritate them, and they would not have so much to brag of when they talked about driving Confederate families out of the county. But they didn’t know Mr. Sprague and his friends. The task was one they did not like, but they did it because they had been ordered to. Carl kept his mouth resolutely closed until they came to the tree from which he had torn down the resolutions. He whipped up his mules when he came there, but Tom laid hold of the reins and stopped them.
“Now, Carl, this is the place,” said he. “Here’s the notice, and you want to get out and tack it up. The nails are all there.”
Carl didn’t know whether to refuse or not, but just then Leon came up on his side of the wagon. Leon had a revolver in his pocket, and Carl did not like to see that; so he grabbed the notice and sprang out of the wagon. In a few minutes it was tacked up just the same as it was before.
“There,” said Leon, “that will do. Now anybody who comes along here and who wasn’t at the convention can see what we did there.”
“Now I guess you had better get out,” said Carl, addressing himself to Tom Howe.
“No, I reckon not,” replied Tom. “I’ve got to go with you as long as you stay in the county, and I reckon I can get along here as well as I can afoot. Drive on.”
Carl at once closed his lips and had nothing more to say. As they were going by his own house, Leon noticed that there was nobody present, for his mother was too refined a woman to take such a paltry vengeance on those who did not believe as she did, but there was one little circumstance that attracted his attention. He was certain that he saw old Cuff’s cottonade coat disappear around the house. He did not have more than a glimpse of it, but he was sure it was there. When they arrived at the cross-roads they met ten more men on foot who were escorting four more wagon-loads of secessionists to Perry county, which was the nearest place they could get and be among friends. They never said a word, but fell in behind Mr. Sprague, and followed along after him. They were all armed with rifles, and some of them had revolvers stuck in their belts. The sight of these men made Carl open his eyes. He had not dreamed that there were so many Union men in the county.
“I believe you’ve got more Yankees here than Confederates,” said he.
“These men are not Yankees,” said Tom. “They are men born here in the South. But these ain’t a patching to what we’ve got. If you had been down to that convention you would have seen a thousand men under arms. There were so many of them that we couldn’t get them all in the church. Some of them had to stay outside and raise the windows.”
“Well, what did you do there besides pass the resolutions of secession?” asked Carl; for now that his uncle was out of hearing he seemed anxious to learn what had been going on at that meeting.
“We elected officers,” said Tom.
“Didn’t you do anything else?”
“Well, yes. There was a couple of enrolling officers came there to enlist men for the Confederate army, and we sent them back where they came from.”
“Then the rebels don’t allow that this county is out of the State, do they?” said Carl, who was overjoyed to hear it. “You have got your own way this time, but I tell you we are coming back. And I won’t forget the boys that drew fire-arms on me.”
“Well, that’s right. I suppose they won’t draw any more on you?”
“No, sir, they won’t,” said Carl, hotly. “I don’t mind talking this way to you, but I do hate the sight of that revolver that Leon Sprague has in his pocket. Where is he now?”
“He is back talking to those men that came up awhile ago,” said Tom. “He can’t hear you, but you must remember that we can fight tolerable sharp.”
Leon had gradually slackened his pace until the single man on horseback, who seemed to be the leader of the party, came up and rode beside him.
“Well, sir, you got ’em, didn’t you?” said the man. “You know, when your father said he would go up after that man yesterday I felt rather anxious about him. I thought he would fight, sure.”
“Well, he didn’t. He did not show any signs of it. He was mighty saucy, though, and so was that nephew of his.”
“One of our men was sassy, too. Do you see that man driving the next wagon? He’s got a big lump under his eye. Bob Lee hit him.”
“Now, what did he do that for? Bob had the right on his side, and there was no reason why he should get mad and strike the man. My father had just as good reason to hit Swayne, but he didn’t do it.”
“He had no business to be sassy. If Bob hadn’t a hit him I would. He said that he hoped to goodness that the rebels would come in and take the last scalp from our heads. When Bob asked him to take it back he said he wouldn’t do it, and so Bob upended him. That was the last sassy word given to us. It showed them that we were in earnest. Hello! There’s three more fellows come up and are talking to your father, and by gracious! one of them is a rebel. Let’s go there and see what they have got to say.”