Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Morgan and several of his officers were taken to Columbus, the capital of Ohio, and were there confined in felon cells in the penitentiary. Four months afterward the leader and six of his captains escaped and made their way in safety to the Confederate lines. Here is the story in outline of how they got free from durance vile.

Two small knives served them for tools, with which they dug through the floors of their cells, composed of cement and nine inches of brickwork, and in this way reached an air-chamber below. They had now only to dig through the soft earth under the foundation walls of the penitentiary and open a passage into the yard. They had furnished themselves with a strong rope, made of their bedclothes, and with this they scaled the walls. In some way they had procured citizen's clothes, so that those who afterward saw them had no suspicion.

In the cell Morgan left the following note: "Cell No. 20. November 20, 1863. Commencement, November 4, 1863. Conclusion, November 20, 1863. Number of hours of labor per day, three. Tools, two small knives. La patience est amère, mais son fruit est doux [Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet]. By order of my six honor

able confederates."

Morgan and Captain Hines went immediately to the railroad station (at one o'clock in the morning) and boarded a train going towards Cincinnati. When near this city, they went to the rear car, slackened the speed by putting on the brake, and

Here

jumped off, making their way to the Ohio. they induced a boy to row them across, and soon found shelter with friends in Kentucky.

A reward of one thousand dollars was offered for Morgan, "alive or dead," but the news of the ovation with which he was soon after received in Richmond proved to his careless jailers that he was safely beyond their reach.

A few words will finish the story of Morgan's career. He was soon at the head of a troop again, annoying the enemy immensely in Kentucky. One of his raiding parties, three hundred strong, actually pushed General Hobson, his former pursuer, into a bend of the Licking River, and captured him with twelve hundred well-armed men. This was Morgan's last exploit. Soon afterward he, with a portion of his staff, were surrounded when in a house at Greenville by Union troops, and the famous Confederate leader was shot dead while seeking to escape.

HOME-COMING OF GENERAL

LEE AND HIS VETERANS.

SAD is defeat, and more than sad was the last march of General Lee's gallant army after its four years of heroic struggle, as it despondently made its way along the Virginian roads westward from the capital city which it had defended so long and valiantly. It was the verdant spring-tide, but the fresh green foliage had no charms for the heart-broken and starving men, whose food supplies had grown so low that they were forced to gnaw the young shoots of the trees for sustenance. It is not our purpose here to tell what followed the surrounding of the fragment of an army by an overwhelming force of foes, the surrender and parole, and the dispersion of the veteran troops to the four winds, but to confine ourselves to the homeward journey of General Lee and a few of his veterans.

Shortly after the surrender, General Lee returned to Richmond, riding slowly from the scene on his iron-gray war-horse, "Traveller," which had borne him so nobly through years of battle and siege. His parting with his soldiers was pathetic, and everywhere on his road to Richmond he received tokens of admiration and respect from friend and foe. Reaching Richmond, he and his companions passed sadly through a portion of the city which exhibited

a distressing scene of blackened ruins from the recent conflagration. As he passed onward he was recognized, and the people flocked to meet him, cheering and waving hats and handkerchiefs. The general, to whom this ovation could not have been agreeable, simply raised his hat in response to the greetings of the citizens, and rode on to his residence in Franklin Street. The closing of its doors upon his retiring form was the final scene in that long drama of war of which for years he had been the central figure. He had returned to that private family life for which his soul had yearned even in the most active scenes of the war.

It is our purpose here to reproduce a vivid personal account of the adventures of some of the retiring soldiers, especially as General Lee bore a part in their experiences. The narrative given is the final one of a series of incidents in the life of the private soldier, related by Private Carlton McCarthy. These papers, in their day, were widely read and much admired, and an extract from them cannot fail still to be of interest. We take up the story of the "Brave Survivors, homeward bound :"

"Early in the morning of Wednesday, the 12th of April, without the stirring drum or the bugle call of old, the camp awoke to the new life. Whether or not they had a country, these soldiers did not know. Home to many, when they reached it, was graves and ashes. At any rate, there must be, somewhere on earth, a better place than a muddy, smoky camp in a piece of scrubby pines;

better company than gloomy, hungry comrades and inquisitive enemies, and something in the future more exciting, if not more hopeful, than nothing to eat, nowhere to sleep, nothing to do, and nowhere to go. The disposition to start was apparent, and the preparations were promptly begun.

"To roll up the old blanket and oil-cloth, gather up the haversack, canteen, axe, perhaps, and a few trifles, in time of peace of no value,—eat the fragments that remained, and light a pipe, was the work of a few moments. This slight employment, coupled with pleasant anticipations of the unknown, and therefore possibly enjoyable future, served to restore somewhat the usual light-hearted manner of soldiers and relieve the final farewells of much of their sadness. There was even a smack of hope and cheerfulness as the little groups sallied out into the world to combat they scarcely knew what. As we cannot follow all these groups, we will join ourselves to one and see them home.

"Two brothers-in-arms,' whose objective-point is Richmond, take the road on foot. They have nothing to eat and no money. They are bound for their home in a city which, when they last heard from it, was in flames. What they will see when they arrive there they cannot imagine, but the instinctive love of home urges them. They walk on steadily and rapidly, and are not diverted by surroundings. It does not even occur to them that their situation, surrounded on all sides by armed enemies and walking a road crowded by

« AnteriorContinuar »