“Who are you?” demanded one of the rebel soldiers, when they had duly possessed his body, which, however, was not a very chivalrous adventure, for the prisoner was unarmed, his gun having been thrown away by the friendly Zouave, after he had so terribly avenged his murdered companion.
“I’m a soldier,” replied Tom, greatly perplexed by the trials of his difficult situation.
As yet he did not know whether he had fallen into the hands of friend or foe, for the night was cloudy and dark, and he could not see what uniform the pickets wore.
“What do you belong to?” demanded the spokesman of the picket trio.
“I belong to the army,” answered Tom, with admirable simplicity.
Our soldier boy, as the reader already knows, had been well “brought up.” He had been taught to tell the truth at all times; and he did so on the present occasion, very much to the confusion, no doubt, of the rebel soldiers, who had not been brought up under the droppings of the sanctuary in a New England village.
“B’long to the army—do you?” repeated Secesh, who must have thought Tom a very candid person.
“Yes, sir, I belong to the army,” added the prisoner.
“I s’pose you won’t mind telling us what army you belong to, ’cause it mought make a difference in our calculations,” added the spokesman.
Tom did not know but that it might make some difference in his calculations, and for this reason he was exceedingly unwilling to commit himself before he ascertained upon which side his questioners belonged.
“Can you tell me where I am?” asked Tom, resolved to use a little strategy in obtaining the desired information.
“May be I can,” replied the picket.
“Will you do so?”
“Sartin, stranger—you are in the woods,” added Secesh; whereat his companions indulged in a wholesome chuckle, which assured Tom that they were human, and his hopes rose accordingly.
“Thank you,” replied Tom, with infinite good nature.
“You say you belong to the army, and I say you are in the woods,” said the soldier, repeating the double postulate, so that the essence of the joke should by no possibility fail to penetrate the cerebellum of his auditor.
Tom was perfectly willing to acknowledge that he was in the woods, both actually and metaphorically, and he was very much disturbed to know how he should get out of the woods—a problem which has puzzled wiser heads than his, even in less perplexing emergencies. He was fearful that, if he declared himself to be a union soldier, he should share the fate of others whom he had seen coolly bayoneted on that eventful day.
“Now, stranger, s’pose you tell me what army you b’long to; then I can tell you where you are,” continued the soldier.
“What do you belong to?” asked Tom, though he did not put the question very confidently.
“I belong to the army;” and the two other pickets honored the reply with another chuckle. “You can’t fool old Alabammy.”
There was no further need of fooling “Old Alabammy,” for the worthy old gentleman, symbolically represented by the rebel soldier, had kindly done it himself; and Tom then realized that he was in the hands of the enemy. It is true, the balance of the picket trio laughed heartily at the unfortunate slip of the tongue made by their companion, but Tom was in no condition to relish the joke, or he might perhaps have insinuated himself into the good graces of the jolly Secesh by repeating Pat’s mysterious problem—“Tell me how many cheeses there are in the bag, and I’ll give ye the whole five;” for, though this is an old joke in the civilized parts of the world, it is not at all probable that it had been perpetrated in the benighted regions of Secessia.
The announcement of the fact that he was in the hands of the foe, as we have before intimated, left Tom in no condition to give or take a joke. His heart was suddenly deprived of some portion of its ordinary gravity, and rose up to the vicinity of his throat. He drew sundry deep and long breaths, indicative of his alarm; for though Tom was a brave boy,—as these pages have already demonstrated,—he had a terrible idea of the tender mercies of the rebels. His first impulse was to break away from his captors, and run the risk of being overtaken by a trio of musket balls; for death from the quick action of a bullet seemed preferable to the fate which his fears conjured up if he should be taken by the bloodthirsty rebels. But the chances were too decidedly against him, and he reluctantly brought his mind to the condition of philosophical submission.
“Well, stranger, which army do you b’long to?” said the spokesman of the picket trio, when he had fully recovered his self-possession.
“I belong to the United States army,” replied Tom, desperately.
“That means the Yankee army, I s’pose.”
“Yes, sir; you call it by that name.”
“Then you are my prisoner.”
“I surrender because I can’t help myself.”
“Hev you nary toothpick or bone-cracker in your pockets?”
“Any what?” replied Tom, whose dictionary seemed to be at fault.
“Nary pistol, knife, or any thing of that sort?”
“Nothing but my jackknife.”
“Any plunder?”
“We piled up our knapsacks and haversacks before we went into the fight. Here is my canteen half full of water; I gave the other half to one of your soldiers, when he was dying of his wounds.”
“Did ye?”
“Now will you be kind enough to tell me where I am?”
“You are inside the lines of our army, about three miles below Centreville,” replied one of the pickets.
“What time is it?”
“Nigh upon nine o’clock, I should say. One of you fellers must take this prisoner to headquarters,” he continued, speaking to his companions.
Tom was very agreeably surprised to find that his captors did not propose to hang, shoot, or bayonet him; and the Southern Confederacy rose a few degrees in his estimation. Certainly the men who had taken him were not fiends, and he began to hope that his situation as a prisoner would not be so terrible as his fancy had pictured it.
One of the men was deputed to conduct him to the officer of the guard; and he walked along by the side of the soldier through the woods, in the direction from which he had just come.
“Can you tell me how the battle went at last?” asked Tom, as they pursued their way through the forest.
“We whipped you all to pieces. Your army hasn’t done running yet. We shall take Washington to-morrow, and Jeff Davis will be in the White House before the week is out.”
“Have you taken many prisoners?” asked Tom, who could not dispute the position of the rebel soldier.
“About fifty thousand, I b’lieve,” replied Secesh, with refreshing confidence.
Tom indulged in a low whistle, but his companion could not tell whether it was an expression of regret or incredulity. If they had stood on an equality, Tom would probably have suggested that the figures should be interpreted “over the left”—an idiosyncrasy in language which he had imported from Pinchbrook, but which may not be wholly unintelligible to our young readers.
From his conductor he obtained some particulars of the battle and its result, which were afterwards more fully set forth in General Beauregard’s official report, and which would have read better on the pages of Sinbad the Sailor than in the folios of a military despatch. But the Secesh soldier’s “facts and figures” were comforting to Tom, who still had a stronger interest in the condition of the good cause, after the heavy blow it had received, than he had in his own individual welfare. Like too heavy a dose of poison, the magnitude of the stories refuted and defeated them. The soldier boy listened in respectful silence, but he was utterly incredulous. It was even possible that the union army had won a victory, after all, though he was not very sanguine on this point.
He was ultimately conducted to the headquarters of the regiment to which his captors belonged, and then turned into a lot with about twenty others, who were strongly guarded. Tom joined his companions in misery, most of whom, worn out by the fatigues of the day, were sleeping soundly upon the ground. Only two or three of them were awake; but these were strangers to him, and he was unable to obtain any information from them concerning any of his friends in the regiment.
It began to rain shortly after Tom joined his fellow-prisoners; but there was no shelter for them. They had neither blankets nor great coats, yet this did not seem to disturb them. Our soldier boy threw himself upon the ground, but the nap he had taken under the side of the log set his eyes wide open for a time. He could only think of home, his mother and sisters, and John, by this time snugly coiled away in the bed where he had been wont to dream of the glories of war. He had cast his fears to the winds when he found that his captors did not intend to butcher him, and he could not help thinking that his situation might have been worse.
Those with whom he had spoken told him they had eaten nothing since morning; and in this respect he was far better off than his companions were. The only thing that troubled him was the thought of the anguish which his mother must suffer, when she heard of the battle. When the regiment should be gathered together again, he would be reported as “missing,” and this would be a terrible word to her, for it meant killed, wounded, or a prisoner. If he could only assure her that he still lived and was uninjured, he would have been happy—happy in spite of the drenching rain—happy in spite of the prospective dungeon, and the hardships to which he might be subjected. He felt that he had faithfully performed his duty. When he began to be drowsy, he settled himself in the most comfortable place he could find on the ground, and thanked God that he had been spared his life through the perils of that awful day, and more fervently that he had been enabled to do his duty like a good soldier; and then, with the Giver of all Good, the Fountain of all Mercy, in his heart, he fell asleep.
He slept several hours, and waked up to find himself as thoroughly soaked as though he had just come out of the river. There was no help for it, and it was no use to grumble. After walking to and fro for half an hour, he lay down again, and, between sleeping and waking, finished the night; uncomfortably, it is true, and yet without any positive suffering. There were hundreds, if not thousands, who were enduring the agony of fearful wounds through that long night; who were lying alone and uncared for where they had fallen in the deadly strife; who were dying every hour, away from their homes and friends, and with no kind hand to minister to their necessities, with no sweet voice of a loved one to smooth their passage down to the dark, cold grave.
Tom thought of these, for he had seen them in his path, and he felt that he had no cause to complain—that he ought to be cheerful and happy. At the dawn of the day he and his fellow-prisoners were marched to Sudley Church, where they were to be confined until they could be sent to Richmond. Here Tom found a captain belonging to his regiment; but neither could give any information to the other in regard to their friends.
“I shall not stay here long,” said the captain, in a whisper, when they had become better acquainted. “I intend to leave to-night.”
“Can’t I go with you?” asked Tom.
“You can go, but we had better not go together.”
Tom thought for a while, and determined upon an attempt to escape. During the day, he carefully examined the premises, and decided upon his mode of operations.
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