33 In the Wilderness

I stopped in the street, bewildered a moment by my freedom, but I retained presence of mind to set the cap in a jaunty and careless way on the side of my head, and to let the cloak hang in rakish fashion from my shoulders. Then I walked along for all the world like a young officer returning from a Christmas eve call upon his sweetheart. I was out of the prison, but not out of Richmond, yet I was confident that I could escape. I believed that it was about half past ten o’clock, and I knew that it was cold. A citizen, a substantial man of middle age, looking like a merchant, stopped me and asked me if anything was happening at the prison, as he had just heard a rumour of trouble there. I told him the exact truth about the accident, and thanking me, he went on. My cap and cloak were Southern, my accent Southern, and he never suspected.

I passed Capitol Square before I chose a course, and then I turned my steps toward the James. I had been in Richmond only once before in my life, coming there as a military prisoner, and my recollections were vague in some respects, but I believed that I could reach the river without interruption. My belief was justified, and soon I stood upon the banks of the James, a silent torrent, but as cold as ice. I had conceived a hazy idea of swimming to the Manchester shore, from which point I could escape more easily through the fortifications, but one look at the river showed me how foolish was the hope. My muscles would be paralyzed by the icy current and I would drown helplessly. My heart sank. I had breathed the breath of freedom a half hour, and it intoxicated me. My mind was filled already with dreams of an escape to Washington, the rescue of Elinor, and an end to all our troubles.

I wandered by the shore a long time, hiding when I heard or saw any one coming, and vainly seeking to devise some plan of further flight. When I grew cold I crept once into an empty and abandoned tobacco hogshead lying on the ground. The warmth was so grateful that I lay there some time, and while within its shelter I heard clocks strike the hour of twelve, and the bells in the spire of a church ring in Christmas morning. The sound was wonderfully clear and distinct in the frosty air, and peace seemed to hang over the city for which the hosts of the North and South were fighting. But the holiday glow had left me. I felt lonely and discouraged, and I was tempted to wish myself back in Libby with my comrades, where I might at least hear friendly voices and see sympathetic faces. But this feeling was short. Triumphs were not won in such a spirit, and coming out of the hogshead, I began anew to plan. I was aware, too, that if I did anything I must do it soon, as I might be missed at any moment, and even before then some vigilant soldier might demand why I lounged along the shores of the James at such an hour.

The city was still quiet. I heard scarcely a sound. The stars winked in the clear cold heavens, and lights shone here and there from a window. I came presently to a little group of cabins, apparently of the kind inhabited by coloured people, and I heard the sound of an axe. An old negro was cutting wood in the rear of a hut, and I watched him a little while, letting the new idea that was born in my mind grow there. I would risk everything on a single chance, and if I lost I could say that I would have lost anyhow, as there was nothing else to do.

“Uncle,” I said to the old man, “can you show me how to escape from Richmond?”

He raised his axe defensively, startled by my voice, as he had neither seen nor heard my approach. When his apprehension disappeared he looked at me in surprise.

“You, a Confedrit officer, ask me that question!” he said.

“I am not a Confederate officer,” I replied. “I am a Northern soldier just escaped from Libby Prison.”

Then I awaited in doubt his answer. It is a strange truth, and perhaps not so strange, that many of the coloured people whom we were fighting to free regarded the Northern soldiers as ogres, and remained throughout the war loyal to their Southern masters.

“See!” I said, opening my cloak and showing the faded and dingy blue of a Northern uniform.

“Come into the house, marster,” he said, and led the way through the kitchen door into his cabin. He lighted a candle, set it on the table, and motioned me to a seat in the single chair that the kitchen could boast. Then he went into the only other room that the house had, and came forth presently with his wife, a woman of some fifty-five or sixty years, much larger and evidently of much more decided character than her lord and master. Then, standing there in the middle of the little kitchen, they held a conference upon my fate, while I sat meekly in the chair awaiting the verdict. The woman at length spoke up.

“We can’t get you out o’ Richmond to-night,” she said. “It’ll have to be done by the river when we do it, but the night’s too bright. If my old man tried to paddle away with you he’d be seen shore.”

“Then you can do nothing for me?” I asked.

“We ain’t said that yet,” she replied. “Jest you hide here in our room till the chance comes, and we’ll get you out o’ Richmond.”

No one ever had more loyal and devoted friends than that humble old coloured couple who never saw me until that night, and who hid me without hope of reward. I remained more than three weeks in their little cabin, slipping out now and then at night, and awaiting a favourable chance to escape by the river. They even served me in other ways, as I asked the woman to go to the house of the Pembrokes in Grace Street, call for Mrs. Elinor Kingsford, and tell her how I fared. That was after I had been with them ten days, and the woman returned, her eyes shining in her black face.

“Did you see her?” I asked eagerly.

“Yes, marster,” she replied, “an’ I’m mighty glad now fur the sake of that chile that we’ve tried to help you.”

“What did she say?” I asked, with increasing eagerness.

“She cried a little, and said she was so glad you’d found friends, an’ she hoped you’d git out o’ Richmon’ soon. She said she’d come to see you, but she dassen’t.”

“That must not be! You must not permit it!” I said. “She would be watched, and it might make trouble for her.”

“I ain’t no fool,” said the woman gravely. “I wouldn’t tell her whar I live, ’cause I was afraid she’d come anyhow. Don’t you believe them white ladies when they say they dassen’t go to see their husbands, an’ I spects the coloured ones are about the same.”

The old man brought me a report, a few days after the new year, that a great battle had been fought in the West, on the last day of the old year, near Stone River, Tennessee, as bloody, as desperate, and as indecisive as Shiloh. There was little comfort in this news to a lover of a united country. The North must do more than fight drawn battles to hold the Union together.

The dark night came at last. The man had secured a skiff, and he said that he would steal up the river with me, landing me in the woods, where a friend of his, another black man, would meet me.

“Take care o’ yourself, marster, for the sake of that purty gal in Richmon’ that loves you,” said the woman at parting.

I promised, and I spoke of a hope to reward her some day, but she would hear of nothing, and went back into the house with a caution to her husband to be careful. She was a true soul in a humble station, risking much for what she believed was right, and without a thought of pay.

The night was pitchy dark, otherwise we would not have made the venture, and we ran the gantlet safely. We passed a gunboat once, her lights burning on the deck, but our skiff slid by in the darkness like a phantom, and no one saw us. We heard, too, the rattle of arms on shore and saw the lights of forts, but we passed them all unchallenged, and before morning my guide, protector, and friend landed me in the woods, where another coloured man, old and gnarled like himself, met us. He called the second man Thomas, his own name was Ephraim, and I never knew the last name of either. Thomas was a woodcutter, almost a hermit, living alone in the tangle of forest and undergrowth far to the northeast of Richmond. He was to take charge of me, delivered like a bale of goods by his friend Ephraim, and pass me through the Confederate lines as soon as the opportunity came. They used to send slaves North by the underground route, and now, the case being reversed, I seemed to be passing that way. There was a certain humour and no humiliation in the thought.

“Good-bye, Ephraim,” I said; “no man has truer friends than Malinda”—Malinda was his wife—“and you have been to me.”

I still had gold, which I carried in an inside pocket of my waistcoat, and I thrust half of it in his hand; I wished to keep the other half for Thomas. He sought to give it back, but I held my hands behind me, and asked Thomas to lead the way through the forest. I looked back once, and saw him stow the gold in his pocket, and then get into his boat. It was but small repayment that I could make him.

Thomas and I walked briskly until sunrise. He was a little, bent old negro, but wonderfully sturdy and enduring. He had a broad, honest face, and I never felt the slightest doubt of his trustworthiness. The long, swift walk through the forest, the little black man flitting on before like a ghost, filled me with a sense of exhilaration. The cold air invited exercise, and the blood, grown sluggish by long inactivity, began to flow again in a vigorous torrent through my veins.

The house of Thomas, a log hut standing in a tiny clearing, was even smaller than Ephraim’s, but it was destined to be my home much longer than I had anticipated. The line of the Confederate posts stretched between Washington and me, so Thomas told me, and the Southern troops were exercising the greatest vigilance and caution. The winter season even did not permit relaxation, as the battle of Fredericksburg, fought in December, showed that cold weather guaranteed no immunity from a campaign. I might be captured or I might not if I made the attempt, but in any event the risk was great, and I chose not to make the trial at present. I had been a captive too often to return to Libby with a good grace, and I stayed with the old man, biding my time. The days passed and the opportunity did not come; the Southern lines converged more closely around us, and that lone little hut in the woods seemed to have become a focus of great military movements. Thomas told me that the forest was full of the Southern cavalry, and he cautioned me to stay close in the house.

It was nearly February when I arrived there, and I saw some of the winter storms sweep through the woods. A deep snow fell once, and I heard the boughs cracking like pistol shots under its weight. The Southern cavalry would not ride so freely in such weather, but it was an equal obstacle to me, it being almost impossible to go on foot through it to Washington or the Northern army, and Thomas said that the attempt would be madness. So I lingered, and when the snow passed away the Southern troops came again, often passing through the clearing in which stood the hut. They entered it once to warm their cold hands by the fire, but I was lying then in the little loft just under the roof, extended full length on the rafters, and they never dreamed of my presence. I heard their talk distinctly through the numerous cracks between the planks, and I gathered from it that they expected another advance of the Northern army as soon as the spring began and the roads dried sufficiently for the passage of the artillery. I heard them mention Varian’s name once. It seemed that he was in command of a considerable body of cavalry in the neighbourhood, and he was expected to keep in touch with the Northern horse and watch every hostile movement. They spoke highly of his skill and vigilance, and the knowledge of his proximity showed me how great had been my need of caution. I saw now the full reason of Thomas’s advice to wait.

The winter passed thus, and I was still at the hut in the woods. I tried twice to escape through the Southern lines, but on each occasion was forced to turn back for fear of recapture. Thomas went into Richmond and, following my instructions, was able, with the aid of Ephraim, to bring back a message from Elinor. She was yet with the Pembrokes, being accepted now as almost one of the family, and she would remain there until she received a message from me to come.

Old Virginia grew green and then bloomed under the touch of spring, and I was devoured by impatience. To be held there so long, almost in sight of my goal, was the utmost trial, and I grew sore in spirit. A third attempt proved futile like the others, but, waiting a week longer, I prepared myself for a fourth, resolved not to turn back, no matter what befell me. Every motive now induced my departure, as it was evident, from the reports brought by Thomas, that some great military movement was impending. The Northern army was advancing and a battle would be fought. I could not lie there in the forest at such a time, to be taken any day by scouting troopers like a rabbit in a snare. I was filled, too, with the desire for action, and I did not wish to be pursued always by others. I was tired of being a prisoner or a fugitive.

Thomas gave me a little knapsack filled with food, and I made him take the last of the gold, except a few pieces that I must use on the way to Washington. He was like Ephraim, and did not wish to accept it, but I compelled him. I think it was his plan to go at once to Richmond and buy a pair of fine new axes, tools that would delight the soul of this honest black woodcutter.

I knew the general direction of Washington and I laid my course by the sun, starting at sunrise of a beautiful spring morning, and walking steadily. I kept to the woods and fields, avoiding the roads, which I was sure would be trodden by the Southern forces. I saw their cavalry three times, and once a troop of horse which I believed to be ours, although they were too far away for me to reach by signal, and were soon gone at a speed that forbade any hope of my joining them. But I was strong and eager, and I walked many miles that day, adopting the Indian pace—the long, swinging gait that gives the greatest speed with the least fatigue—and when night came I was far on the journey toward Washington. The country was unknown to me, but I still travelled by the sun and had no fear that I was going in the wrong direction. My journey so far was a success. Nowhere had I found the way barred. The Confederate lines seemed to have been shifted farther toward the northeast, and I believed it to be a result of the preparations for the impending battle. I stopped just after dark in a clump of woods to eat some of the cold food that Thomas had put in the knapsack, and to rest a while. It was a fine, clear night, myriads of stars twinkling in a sky of silky blue, and the warm air was laden with the fresh odours of spring.

It was not a beautiful country into which I had come: a wilderness of bleak, red hills, half clad in a scrubby second growth of forest; many gullies washed here and there by the rains, and now and then an “old field” grown up with sassafras bushes. I passed over an ancient and abandoned iron furnace, but inhabitants there seemed to be none.

I was in the sombre shades of the Wilderness, that gloomy region of Virginia whose sanguinary recollections even now appal the Americans who fought there, an area of land that bore more dead men’s bones than any other of modern times. But I had no thought then of what the future was to bring. I ate the bacon and corn bread, sitting on a fallen log in the dense thicket and invisible to any one twenty feet away. I wished to take a good rest and travel all the remainder of the night, as darkness was my best protection, and I hoped that the morning would see me in the Northern army or at least beyond the Southern lines. While I was sitting there I heard faint and far the note of a trumpet—Ta-ra-ra-ta-ra-ra! It was repeated and grew louder, and then was answered from the left by another trumpet. Cavalry again I was sure, and they were converging upon me, although unconscious of it. But I felt no alarm. I was hidden in the thicket as securely as a rabbit in its burrow, and no horse would enter such a covert. I stood up among the bushes and saw a line of cavalry passing along a woodland path, showing but a little while against the clear sky and then disappearing. The sound of the trumpets became fainter and died.

I resumed my flight about nine o’clock, having marked well the direction, and pressed forward with all diligence. It was about an hour later when I stopped, startled by a low muttering sound like the far swell of the sea, that seemed to come up from the eastern horizon. It was a distant cannon shot that betokened the gathering of armies, and, although I knew it not, it was the rumbling thunder of Chancellorsville. I was listening to the opening notes of the great battle.

I passed on, and to the eastward I heard another cannon shot, and then another, and then another. Dim red flashes appeared on the misty horizon, and once I heard the sound of galloping hoofs. I began now to feel an interest that was more than personal. Here were movements of importance, and my flight had taken me among them. There was danger in it, and yet it gave me opportunity, too. Armies gathering for battle would not notice one straggler as he stole through the wilderness.

The sounds in the east grew to a low but steady rumble. I shifted to the westward, that I might pass around this cannonade, but my change of course brought to my ears the thunder of guns in the west too. I was between two fires, and, deciding that it was best for me to go straight ahead, I pushed on, still keeping to the densest of the thickets, the voice of the guns steadily growing louder. Troops began to pass me, and all were of the South. They came so near once that I lay down in the bushes behind a log, and I could understand the words they spoke as they passed by. They began to sing presently, many hundreds of hoarse voices joining in a chant that was low, rolling, and majestic, and this was the song:

They passed on, and the song still rang in my ears like an echo.

I lay hidden all the time in the scrub while an entire brigade passed, but as soon as they were out of sight I arose and hastened on with doubled speed, not wishing to be caught within the ring of battle.

I saw troops again moving along a road, and I curved back into the thickets, coming presently to the brow of a low hill, where I lay down among the bushes. The sound of voices, as if in earnest conversation, reached me there, and, crawling to the edge of the hill where I still lay hidden in the thickets, I looked down the slope.

Two men were sitting on empty cracker boxes, talking, and looking occasionally at a paper which I supposed bore a map. The faces of both showed intense interest and preoccupation. A sentinel, gun on shoulder, paced back and forth near them, and three or four sticks of wood thrown together gave out a fire like a little torch.

I knew those men—one large, imposing, but dressed so neatly; the other smaller, shabby, his face covered with an unkempt black beard. They were the two who had asked me questions in the prison. I was looking at Stonewall Jackson as he planned with Lee his last great battle.

I watched them a little while, full of curiosity, and then I stole away, conscious that my place was not there, and eager to reach the army to which I belonged. I travelled all night, and good fortune went on before me as a guide. I heard continually and on every side of me the low thunder of distant guns, and beheld now and then the flashes on the horizon, but no one saw me as I passed through the Confederate lines.

It was nearly morning when I came to a little brook, and kneeling, drank eagerly. I washed my face then in the cool water, and seeking the nearest thicket, lay down half under a fallen log, where one to see me must first step on me. The distant music of the cannon was still in my ears as I, worn out, fell asleep. It was the same music of the guns that lulled me to deeper slumbers, and when I awoke at midday, the brilliant sun penetrating even the bushes that covered me, the thunder of the cannon was still sounding in my ears.

I ate the last of the food, listening with all my ears and looking with all my eyes. The east was in a red flame, and I knew that the steady roaring was made by many great guns. But, refreshed and strengthened, I passed it by and fled toward Washington. I met on the way, however, some of our broken battalions, learning from them of our great defeat and Stonewall Jackson’s death. I reached the capital the day after I heard this news, and enlisted anew as a soldier in the Union cause, being assigned to service, contrary to my wish, however, in the Washington garrison.

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