The story of Frank’s adventure
and courage was the talk of all the Oakland plantation.
His mother and Cousin Belle both kissed him, and called
him their little hero. Willy also received a full
share of praise for his courage.
About noon there was great commotion
among the troops. They were far more numerous
than they had been in the morning, and instead of riding
about the woods in small bodies, hunting for the concealed
soldiers, they were collecting together and preparing
to move.
It was learned that a considerable
body of cavalry was passing down the road by Trinity
Church, and that the depot had been burnt again the
night before. Somehow, a rumor got about that
the Confederates were following up the raiders.
In an hour most of the soldiers went
away, but a number still stayed on. Their horses
were picketed about the yard feeding; and they themselves
lounged around, making themselves at home in the house,
and pulling to pieces the things that were left.
They were not, however, as wanton in their destruction
as the first set, who had passed by the year before.
Among those who yet remained were
the little corporal, and the big young soldier who
had been so kind to Frank. They were in the rear-guard.
At length the last man rode off.
The boys had gone in and out among
them, without being molested. Now and then some
rough fellow would swear at them, but for the most
part their intercourse with the boys was friendly.
When, therefore, they rode off, the boys were allowed
by their mother to go and see the main body.
Peter and Cole were with them.
They took the main road and followed along, picking
up straps, and cartridges, and all those miscellaneous
things dropped by a large body of troops as they pass
along.
Cartridges were very valuable, as
they furnished the only powder and shot the boys could
get for hunting, and their supply was out. These
were found in unusual numbers. The boys filled
their pockets, and finally filled their sleeves, tying
them tightly at the wrist with strings, so that the
contents would not spill out. One of the boys
found even an old pistol, which was considered a great
treasure. He bore it proudly in his belt, and
was envied by all the others.
It was quite late in the afternoon
when they thought of turning toward home, their pockets
and sleeves bagging down with the heavy musket-cartridges.
They left the Federal rear-guard feeding their horses
at a great white pile of corn which had been thrown
out of the corn-house of a neighbor, and was scattered
all over the ground.
They crossed a field, descended a
hill, and took the main road at its foot, just as
a body of cavalry came in sight. A small squad,
riding some little distance in advance of the main
body, had already passed by. These were Confederates.
The first man they saw, at the head of the column
by the colonel, was the General, and a little behind
him was none other than Hugh on a gray roan; while
not far down the column rode their friend Tim Mills,
looking rusty and sleepy as usual.
“Goodness! Why, here are
the General and Hugh! How in the world did you
get away?” exclaimed the boys.
They learned that it was a column
of cavalry following the line of the raid, and that
the General and Hugh had met them and volunteered.
The soldiers greeted the boys cordially.
“The Yankees are right up there,” said
the youngsters.
“Where? How many? What are they doing?”
asked the General.
“A whole pack of ’em right
up there at the stables, and all about, feeding their
horses and sitting all around, and ever so many more
have gone along down the road.”
“Fling the fence down there!”
The boys pitched down the rails in two or three places.
An order was passed back, and in an instant a stir
of preparation was noticed all down the line of horsemen.
A courier galloped up the road to
recall the advance-guard. The head of the column
passed through the gap, and, without waiting for the
others, dashed up the hill at a gallop the
General and the colonel a score of yards ahead of
any of the others.
“Let’s go and see the
fight!” cried the boys; and the whole set started
back up the hill as fast as their legs could carry
them.
“S’pose they shoot!
Won’t they shoot us?” asked one of the
negro boys, in some apprehension. This, though
before unthought of, was a possibility, and for a
moment brought them down to a slower pace.
“We can lie flat and peep over
the top of the hill.” This was Frank’s
happy thought, and the party started ahead again.
“Let’s go around that way.”
They made a little detour.
Just before they reached the crest
they heard a shot, “bang!” immediately
followed by another, “bang!” and in a second
more a regular volley began, and was kept up.
They reached the crest of the hill
in time to see the Confederates gallop up the slope
toward the stables, firing their pistols at the blue-coats,
who were forming in the edge of a little wood, over
beyond a fence, from the other side of which the smoke
of their carbines was rolling. They had evidently
started on just as the boys left, and before the Confederates
came in sight.
The boys saw their friends dash at
this fence, and could distinguish the General and
Hugh, who were still in the lead. Their horses
took the fence, going over like birds, and others
followed, Tim Mills among them, while
yet more went through a gate a few yards to one side.
“Look at Hugh! Look at Hugh!”
“Look! That horse has fallen
down!” cried one of the boys, as a horse went
down just at the entrance of the wood, rolling over
his rider.
“He’s shot!” exclaimed
Frank, for neither horse nor rider attempted to rise.
“See; they are running!”
The little squad of blue-coats were
retiring into the woods, with the grays closely pressing
them.
“Let’s cut across and see ’em run
’em over the bridge.”
“Come on!”
All the little group of spectators,
white and black, started as hard as they could go
for a path they knew, which led by a short cut through
the little piece of woods. Beyond lay a field
divided by a stream, a short distance on the other
side of which was a large body of woods.
The popping was still going on furiously
in the woods, and bullets were “zoo-ing”
over the fields. But the boys could not see anything,
and they did not think about the flying balls.
They were all excitement at the idea
of “our men” whipping the enemy, and they
ran with all their might to be in time to see them
“chase ’em across the field.”
The road on which the skirmish took
place, and down which the Federal rear-guard had retreated,
made a sharp curve beyond the woods, around the bend
of a little stream crossed by a small bridge; and the
boys, in taking the short cut, had placed the road
between themselves and home; but they did not care
about that, for their men were driving the others.
They “just wanted to see it.”
They reached the edge of the field
in time to see that the Yankees were on the other
side of the stream. They knew them to be where
puffs of smoke came out of the opposite wood.
And the Confederates had stopped beyond the bridge,
and were halted, in some confusion, in the field.
The firing was very sharp, and bullets
were singing in every direction. Then the Confederates
got together, and went as hard as they could right
at them up to the wood, all along the edge of which
the smoke was pouring in continuous puffs and with
a rattle of shots. They saw several horses fall
as the Confederates galloped on, but the smoke hid
most of it. Next they saw a long line of fire
appear in the smoke on both sides of the road, where
it entered the wood; then the Confederates stopped,
and became all mixed up; a number of horses galloped
away without their riders, another line of white and
red flame came out of the woods, the Confederates
began to come back, leaving many horses on the ground,
and a body of cavalry in blue coats poured out of
the wood in pursuit.
“Look! look! They are running they
are beating our men!” exclaimed the boys.
“They have driven ’em back across the bridge!”
“How many of them there are!”
“What shall we do? Suppose they see us!”
“Come on, Mah’srs Frank
‘n’ Willy, let’s go home,”
said the colored boys. “They’ll shoot
us.”
The fight was now in the woods which
lay between the boys and their home. But just
then the gray-coats got together, again turned at the
edge of the wood, and dashed back on their pursuers,
and the smoke and bushes on the stream
hid everything. In a second more both emerged
on the other side of the smoke and went into the woods
on the further edge of the field, all in confusion,
and leaving on the ground more horses and men than
before.
“What’s them things ‘zip-zippin’
’round my ears?” asked one of the negro
boys.
“Bullets,” said Frank, proud of his knowledge.
“Will they hurt me if they hit me?”
“Of course they will. They’ll kill
you.”
“I’m gwine home,” said the boy,
and off he started at a trot.
“Hold on! We’re
goin’, too; but let’s go down this way;
this is the best way.”
They went along the edge of the field,
toward the point in the road where the skirmish had
been and where the Confederates had rallied.
They stopped to listen to the popping in the woods
on the other side, and were just saying how glad they
were that “our men had whipped them,”
when a soldier came along.
“What in the name of goodness
are you boys doing here?” he asked.
“We’re just looking on
an’ lis’ning,” answered the boys
meekly.
“Well, you’d better be
getting home as fast as you can. They are too
strong for us, and they’ll be driving us back
directly, and some of you may get killed or run over.”
This was dreadful! Such an idea
had never occurred to the boys. A panic took
possession of them.
“Come on! Let’s go
home!” This was the universal idea, and in a
second the whole party were cutting straight for home,
utterly stampeded.
They could readily have found shelter
and security back over the hill, from the flying balls;
but they preferred to get home, and they made straight
for it. The popping of the guns, which still kept
up in the woods across the little river, now meant
to them that the victorious Yankees were driving back
their friends. They believed that the bullets
which now and then yet whistled over the woods with
a long, singing “zoo-ee,” were aimed at
them. For their lives, then, they ran, expecting
to be killed every minute.
The load of cartridges in their pockets,
which they had carried for hours, weighed them down.
As they ran they threw these out. Then followed
those in their sleeves. Frank and the other boys
easily got rid of theirs, but Willy had tied the strings
around his wrists in such hard knots that he could
not possibly untie them. He was falling behind.
Frank heard him call. Without
slacking his speed he looked back over his shoulder.
Willy’s face was red, and his mouth was twitching.
He was sobbing a little, and was tearing at the strings
with his teeth as he ran. Then the strings came
loose one after the other, the cartridges were shaken
out over the ground, and Willy’s face at once
cleared up as he ran forward lightened of his load.
They had passed almost through the
narrow skirt of woods where the first attack was made,
when they heard some one not far from the side of
the road call, “Water!”
The boys stopped. “What’s
that?” they asked each other in a startled undertone.
A groan came from the same direction, and a voice said,
“Oh, for some water!”
A short, whispered consultation was held.
“He’s right up on that bank. There’s
a road up there.”
Frank advanced a little; a man was
lying somewhat propped up against a tree. His
eyes were closed, and there was a ghastly wound in
his head.
“Willy, it’s a Yankee, and he’s
shot.”
“Is he dead?” asked the others, in awed
voices.
“No. Let’s ask him if he’s
hurt much.”
They all approached him. His
eyes were shut and his face was ashy white.
“Willy, it’s my Yankee!”
exclaimed Frank.
The wounded man moved his hand at the sound of the
voices.
“Water,” he murmured. “Bring
me water, for pity’s sake!”
“I’ll get you some, don’t
you know me? Let me have your canteen,”
said Frank, stooping and taking hold of the canteen.
It was held by its strap; but the boy whipped out
a knife and cut it loose.
The man tried to speak; but the boys could not understand
him.
“Where are you goin’ get it, Frank?”
asked the other boys.
“At the branch down there that runs into the
creek.”
“The Yankees’ll shoot you down there,”
objected Peter and Willy.
“I ain’ gwine that way,”
said Cole.
The soldier groaned.
“I’ll go with you,
Frank,” said Willy, who could not stand the sight
of the man’s suffering.
“We’ll be back directly.”
The two boys darted off, the others
following them at a little distance. They reached
the open field. The shooting was still going on
in the woods on the other side, but they no longer
thought of it. They ran down the hill and dashed
across the little flat to the branch at the nearest
point, washed the blood from the canteen, and filled
it with the cool water.
“I wish we had something to
wash his face with,” sighed Willy, “but
I haven’t got a handkerchief.”
“Neither have I.”
Willy looked thoughtful. A second more and he
had stripped off his light sailor’s jacket and
dipped it in the water. The next minute the two
boys were running up the hill again.
When they reached the spot where the
wounded man lay, he had slipped down and was flat
on the ground. His feeble voice still called for
water, but was much weaker than before. Frank
stooped and held the canteen to the man’s lips,
and he drank. Then Willy and Frank, together,
bathed his face with the still dripping cotton jacket.
This revived him somewhat; but he did not recognize
them and talked incoherently. They propped up
his head.
“Frank, it’s getting mighty
late, and we’ve got to go home,” said
Willy.
The boys’ voice or words reached
the ears of the wounded man.
“Take me home,” he murmured;
“I want some water from the well by the dairy.”
“Give him some more water.”
Willy lifted the canteen. “Here it is.”
The soldier swallowed with difficulty.
He could not raise his hand now.
There was a pause. The boys stood around, looking
down on him. “I’ve come back home,”
he said. His eyes were closed.
“He’s dreaming,” whispered Willy.
“Did you ever see anybody die?” asked
Frank, in a low tone.
Willy’s face paled.
“No, Frank; let’s go home and tell somebody.”
Frank stooped and touched the soldier’s
face. He was talking all the time now, though
they could not understand everything he said.
The boy’s touch seemed to rouse him.
“It’s bedtime,”
he said, presently. “Kneel down and say
your prayers for Father.”
“Willy, let’s say our prayers for him,”
whispered Frank.
“I can say, ‘Now I lay me.’”
But before he could begin,
“‘Now I lay me down to
sleep,’” said the soldier tenderly.
The boys followed him, thinking he had heard them.
They did not know that he was saying for
one whom but that morning he had called “his
curly-head at home” the prayer that
is common to Virginia and to Delaware, to North and
to South, and which no wars can silence and no victories
cause to be forgotten.
The soldier’s voice now was
growing almost inaudible. He spoke between long-drawn
breaths.
“‘If I should die before I wake.’”
“‘If I should die before
I wake,’” they repeated, and continued
the prayer.
“‘And this I ask for Jesus’
sake,’” said the boys, ending. There
was a long pause. Frank stroked the pale face
softly with his hands.
“‘And this I ask for Jesus’
sake,’” whispered the lips. Then,
very softly, “Kiss me good-night.”
“Kiss him, Frank.”
The boy stooped over and kissed the
lips that had kissed him in the morning. Willy
kissed him, also. The lips moved in a faint smile.
“God bless ”
The boys waited, but that
was all. The dusk settled down in the woods.
The prayer was ended.
“He’s dead,” said Frank, in deep
awe.
“Frank, aren’t you mighty
sorry?” asked Willy in a trembling voice.
Then he suddenly broke out crying.
“I don’t want him to die! I don’t
want him to die!”