This settled the matter, and Mr. Sprague never referred to it again. About eight o’clock they arrived at the little bridge which spanned the creek that flowed between Jones and Perry counties, and there Mr. Sprague halted his men and motioned to Mr. Swayne to go on. The man complied, and when he had got far enough across to let all the wagons that came after him get a footing on Confederate soil he stopped and jumped out.
“Thank goodness I’ve got a white man’s ground under my feet!” he exclaimed; and no one had ever seen him so mad before. He seemed to be holding in for just this occasion, and he was so angry that he could scarcely speak plainly. “I suppose that now I can talk to you as I have a mind to.”
“Draw yourselves in line across this bridge and hold your guns in readiness to shoot,” said Mr. Sprague in a low tone to his men. “He may open fire on us before we can get under cover. Oh, yes, you can say what you please, now,” he said, in his ordinary voice. “But I wouldn’t say too much till I get behind that bend.”
“Well, I want to say this much to you,” shouted Mr. Swayne; “you have had your own way this time, but we are coming back in less than a week to clean you all out.”
“And remember this,” exclaimed Carl from his place in the wagon. “I will bear in mind the boys who drew shooting-irons on me, you see if I don’t. I’ll tear down that notice, and every other one that I can find.”
“And you, Bob Lee, I’ll remember you,” said the man with a lump under his eye. “I’ll teach you that the next man who says anything about the Confederates – well, you had better let him alone, that’s all,” he added, when he saw Bob raise his gun to his shoulder.
“If you are all ready, go on,” said Mr. Sprague.
Mr. Swayne was a long time in getting into his wagon. He would place his foot upon the hub, and then one of the men would say something insulting in regard to the men they had just left, and Mr. Swayne would take his foot down and stand there until he heard what the man had to say. He was in earnest when he said they were coming back to clean the Union men all out, and that there wouldn’t be hide nor hair of them left when they did come, and finally he got into his wagon and drove on. When he looked behind to see what had become of Mr. Sprague and his party, he saw them just disappearing around the nearest bend in the road.
“I wish I dared shoot at them,” said he.
“Well, I’ll shoot at them, and welcome,” said the man whom Bob Lee had struck, as he reached for his gun.
“Don’t do it, Jim,” expostulated Mr. Swayne.
“Dog-gone it, don’t you see the bump under my eye?” said the man. “I can see the chap who did it, and I can pick him off just as easy as you would kill a squirrel.”
“If you shoot at them they will come back here and arrest the whole of us, and take us back to their camp and make us stand a court-martial,” said Mr. Swayne. “I am not a-going to stand punishment for your deeds and mine into the bargain.”
This view of the matter rather arrested the man’s hand, and he sat with his gun resting across his knees, muttering curses not loud but deep, until he saw the Union men disappear around a bend in the road. Mr. Sprague knew that he stood a chance of being fired upon, and that was what he intended to do; he would arrest the whole of them and take them to camp. But Mr. Swayne was a little too sharp for him. It was two o’clock when they arrived at the camp, and the men, to show that they knew what sort of respect ought to be paid to the Secretary of War, went off to hunt up some forage for his horse and Leon’s before they went to bed.
“Well, Leon,” said Mr. Sprague, after the horses had been picketed with plenty to eat and the men had all gone away, “we haven’t got any blankets.”
“No matter for that,” said Leon. “It won’t be the first time I have slept out with nothing to cover me. Get some leaves, and they will do just as well.”
They walked along the road as they talked, and Mr. Sprague could not help thinking what a big army he was going to have to attack that wagon-train. Every step of the way he saw lean-tos, and he knew that there were stalwart men sleeping under them. Finally he drew up before a lean-to where there was a sentry sitting in front of the door. He did not carry his arms at a “support,” nor did he bring his piece to “arms port” and call out, “Who comes there?” when he saw Mr. Sprague and Leon approaching. But he greeted him in regular backwoods style.
“Hallo, Sprague” said he. “Did you get your parties through all right?”
The Secretary of War replied that he did, adding —
“This must be the home of that rebel, isn’t it?”
“Yes. But he has been perfectly peaceable all night. He didn’t sleep at all the night before.”
“No; but I am awake now,” called out a voice from the inside; and there was a little fussing in the cabin and the rebel came to the door.
“Say, Colonel, are you going to stay here all night?”
“That is the intention. I want to get an early start, and it is too far for me to go home.”
“Well, now, I know that you haven’t got any quilts,” said the rebel, disappearing under the roof of the lean-to. “Here’s some that will add to your comfort to-night. Take them and welcome.”
Mr. Sprague thanked the rebel for his gift and spread the quilts down where they intended to camp for the night, while Leon told himself that it was a good thing to have a father who was Secretary of War, after all. They slept soundly for a little while, but at half-past three Mr. Sprague was awake and busily engaged in arousing the men. In less time than it takes to tell it they were all up and cooking their breakfast, and in an hour more the grove was empty. Five hundred men were going out to attack that wagon-train, and, if possible, secure something to eat. We don’t mean to say that they were hard up for provisions, for there was bacon and corn-meal enough in the county to last them for months; but we mean that they had lived so long on these things that they had grown tired of them. They had been used to something better than that before the war, and when their boats came back from tide-water, after their owners had succeeded in selling their logs, the housewife found pickles, canned meat and condensed milk enough to last her family for six months. That was one thing that the men had in view; and another thing, some of them were in need of clothes; and they believed that this wagon-train had something of that kind stowed away for the boys in Mobile. And, better than all – and here was the thing that led the men to look with favor upon robbing the train – it would show the Confederates they were in earnest; – just what the Union people wanted to do.
It was a long march from the grove in Ellisville to the stream that separated the two counties, but the men went about it in earnest and determined to get there in time to stop that wagon-train. Of course, there was plenty of joking and laughing while they were on their own ground, but the moment they struck the bridge a deep silence fell upon the company. We ought by rights to say that the men had been divided into five companies, a hundred men in each, and that each one had three officers to direct them; but the Union men of Jones county had not got that far in military tactics. There was only one man at the head, Mr. Sprague, and he had the full management of them.
Mr. Sprague rode at the head of the line in company with all the men who had horses, and there must have been about fifty of them, and when he crossed the bridge he sent a dozen of them on ahead to travel at full speed, to see if the wagon-train had passed.
“I needn’t remind you that you want to go into every house you come to, and if there is a man in there take him in,” said he. “Don’t say a word to the women, but ketch the men. It won’t do to leave any rebels behind us, for they can easily warn the train, and so we must take them with us until we get the job done. Silas, I will appoint you captain of this squad.”
Silas raised his hand to his hat with something that was intended for a military salute, called all his men about him, and went down the road at a keen jump, while the rest of the company travelled on as before. An hour afterward they came up with their scouts,