Read Ebook: Rodney the Overseer by Castlemon Harry White George G George Gorgas Illustrator

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Ebook has 1246 lines and 90101 words, and 25 pages

"As sure as I live I never gave him orders to search anybody's premises," declared Tom.

"I don't reckon you ever gave him much orders of any sort," replied the planter, with a look on his face which showed that he knew about how much authority Tom had over the Home Guards.

"And bear this in mind," added his companion: "when we found that we couldn't say or do anything to stop them, and that they were dead set on having the guns, we offered to bring 'em out ruther than have them dirty vagabonds rummaging over our things; but that didn't by no means suit Lambert. Him and his men must go in themselves so as to be sure of getting everything in the shape of weapons there was. And when they got into my house where do you suppose was the first place they went to?" added Boswell, with suppressed fury.

"I have not the slightest idea," replied Mrs. Randolph, when the man stopped and looked around as if he expected an answer.

"To the bed," said Tom, who had heard that it was a good plan for raiders to look between mattresses for things they wanted to find.

"No, they didn't. They went straight to my wife's bureau," said Boswell fiercely. "That was a pretty place to look for guns, wasn't it, now?"

Tom was thunderstruck. He knew that the Home Guards had been denounced as robbers because they had ransacked the dwellings and smoke-houses of Union men, and had thought nothing of it, for Union men had no rights, and were not in the least deserving of sympathy; but this was a different matter altogether. It would never do to let such a story as that get to the ears of the Governor.

"Perhaps they looked into the bureau for revolvers," he managed to say at length.

"No, they didn't. They looked for rings and breastpins and bracelets and the like; but they didn't find none, for my wife was sharp enough to put the whole business into her pocket as soon as she see that they were set on coming into the house. All the same, they got a rifle that cost me 5 in gold in New Orleans in good times, and a shot gun that is worth almost twice as much. And I'll tell you what's a fact, Tom Randolph: I want them guns back. They're mine, and if I don't get 'em I'll raise a fuss."

"And while you are getting them you might as well tell Lambert to hand over the two guns he stole from me," said the other visitor, "and that if he ever pokes his long nose inside my door again I'll send the contents of one of 'em into it. I say nothing about the hams they took from my smoke house, but they mustn't try to take any more. I reckon me and Boswell were a little too fast in accusing you of sending Lambert to search our houses, but you being the captain, you know, why--really you had oughter make them fellers go a little slower. What do you think of the situation anyhow, Mr. Randolph? And how long will it be before we shall have Washington?"

Mr. Randolph and his wife were glad to have the conversation turned into another channel, and so was Captain Tom, who did not want to hear any more about Lieutenant Lambert and his exploits. He was ill at ease as long as the visitors remained; but they went away as soon as they had drunk their coffee, and seemed as glad to go as the Randolphs were to have them.

Tom did not eat a hearty breakfast that morning, for the fear that the Governor might get wind of Lambert's latest raid and revoke his commission, added to the difficulties he saw in his way of complying with the demands his late visitors had made upon him, took away his appetite. He must restore those guns to their owners--there were no two ways about that; but how should he go to work to get them? His first thought was to present himself before Lambert in full uniform and, by virtue of the authority conferred upon him by his captain's commission, which stated in plain language that he was to be obeyed by all persons under him, demand the return of the stolen property forthwith. That was the way any other captain would have gone about it, Tom thought; but he was afraid that bluster might not prove successful in his case. He had reason to fear that he did not stand as high in the estimation of some of his men as he did in his mother's; that he had on one or two occasions been compared to a wagon's fifth wheel in point of usefulness, and it would be just like the insubordinate Lambert to refuse point blank to obey his orders. That would be unfortunate, for it would show to the world, and perhaps to the Governor, that Tom was not the real captain of the Home Guards. After looking at the matter from all sides he made up his mind that conciliation would be his best policy, and when he rode away to seek an interview with his lieutenant he wore citizen's clothes and left his sword behind. He found Lambert at his quarters on the Randall plantation, where he continued to live, although he had turned the work over to the field hands and seldom took the trouble to see how it was going on, and he was just getting ready to mount the horse that had been brought to his door.

"Hallo, lieutenant!" began Tom, with more familiarity and good-fellowship than he had ever before exhibited in addressing the man.

"Morning, cap'n," replied the overseer, who might have responded to the salutation in a very different way if Tom had not been respectful enough to put a handle to his name. "Want to see me?"

"I came over on purpose to have a friendly talk with you," said Tom. "Look here, old fellow; you will play smash if you don't stop raiding the premises of such men as Boswell and Wallace. What induced you to do it?"

"Aint I got a right to look for we'pons?" demanded Lambert.

"You have authority from me," answered Tom, with some emphasis on the two last words, "to search the houses of Union men, but you have no right to enter the dwellings of Confederates."

"Look-a-here, cap'n. I knowed that them two men had guns in hiding."

"But you didn't expect to find them in bureau drawers, did you?"

"Eh?" exclaimed the overseer. He looked somewhat abashed for a moment and then continued: "When I search a house I search it. I look into every hole and corner in it."

"That is perfectly right when you search houses belonging to the enemies of your country; but it is all wrong when you enter the houses of our friends. Such work will turn them against us--make enemies of them. I saw Boswell and Wallace this morning and they are mad as hornets. They want their guns back."

"Well, the next time you see 'em just ask if they'll have 'em now or wait till they get 'em. I want them guns myself to keep the Yankees from getting 'em."

"The Yankees!" said Tom contemptuously. "You don't think they will ever get this far South, do you?"

"They mout. Didn't you say yourself that they was liable to come down from Cairo or up from New Orleans, and that we'd oughter have a company of Home Guards here to stop 'em?"

When Tom said this he stopped abruptly and gave such a start that his lieutenant looked up at him in surprise.

"What's the matter, cap'n?" said he. "You what?"

"Have I got to have a paper like yourn?" exclaimed Lambert, looking astonished and interested. "That's news to me."

"Yes. And it can come to you only through my recommendation. I must certify that you were legally elected to the office you hold, and that was the reason I did not want you men to go through the farce of holding an election on horseback on the day I ordered you out for inspection," replied Tom; but the truth was he had never thought of it until that moment. It was a bright idea that suddenly flitted through his mind, and he wondered why it had been so long in coming to him.

"Well, by gum!" was all the disgusted Lambert could say in reply.

"Your papers, if you get them, will be something like mine, only different, you know, for a captain outranks a lieutenant by a large majority," continued Tom, improving to the utmost the advantage he had so unexpectedly gained. "You have no authority to make out warrants, but I have; and our non-coms., if we had any, would have to look to me for them."

This was all Greek to the overseer, who had taken no pains to post himself on military matters, but he did not ask Tom to explain, for he was anxious to hear more about the commission he ought to have, but had not yet received.

"Well, go on," said he impatiently. "And when you what?"

"And when I make my first report to the Governor or his adjutant-general, and ask him about your commission and Moseley's, I want to be able to say that you are in every way satisfactory to me as well as to the people hereabouts, and that I am sure you will make brave and obedient officers. But you can see for yourself that I can't say that if you keep on bothering good and loyal Confederates like Wallace and Boswell. I think you had better give me those guns."

"I aint got but one," replied Lambert, who seemed to have lost the independent and swaggering air he had assumed at the beginning of the interview, "and I'll go right in and bring it out."

"Where are the others?" demanded Captain Tom.

"Well, Moseley's got one, Smith's got another, and where t'other one has went I disremember just at this minute."

"You distributed the spoils among you, it seems."

"Yes, kinder; so't the Yankees couldn't easy find them."

"Then you must ride around and gather them up; and as I have nothing particular to do this morning I will go with you. I'd rather be a king among hogs than a hog among kings any day," said Tom to himself, as his lieutenant turned about and went into his house, "but I confess I little thought I should get so low down as to command a lot of brigands. That idea about the commissions makes me the biggest toad in the puddle from this time on. I'll hold them up as prospective rewards for good behavior and prompt obedience of orders; but Lambert and Moseley shall never have commissions on my recommendation, I bet you."

The Home Guards had deliberately stolen these four valuable guns, and Tom Randolph knew it as soon as he found how they had been scattered about. The plea that if permitted to remain in possession of their owners they might be captured by the Yankees, who would use them to kill Confederates, was Lambert's excuse for one of the worst outrages that had ever been perpetrated in that part of Louisiana; but it was by no means the last. Three-fourths of all the Home Guards in the South were like Captain Tom's men, and the worst that can be said of them is that they acted as guards at Andersonville, Libby, Millen, and Salisbury. It was not the Confederate soldiers who served at the front, but the Home Guards, who starved the boys in blue to death in those prison pens, and hunted them with bloodhounds when they escaped.

"It was all done for effect, and that man will be one of the last in the Confederacy to shoulder a musket," said Rodney Gray when he heard of it; but being a soldier he applauded the action of Captain Palmer, who, without any fuss or parade, promptly took possession of the barracks, arsenal, and other property of the United States. He hoisted the flag of the Union over the arsenal too, and told the boastful mayor in pretty plain language that he would let it stay there if he did not want to get himself and his town into trouble.

"All honor to the brave citizens of New Orleans. They have shown me how I ought to act in this emergency," said Captain Randolph on the morning the startling news came that some of the victorious Union fleet had steamed up the river. He posted for his room the moment he heard of it, and when he came down he was dressed in his uniform and wore his glittering sword by his side.

"Now take those things off and don't make a fool of yourself," said Mr. Randolph, who had told his wife over and over again that from the bottom of his heart he wished he had never had anything to do with the Home Guards.

"Don't be rash, my dear," said his mother in tones more befitting the occasion. "What are you going to do?"

"I shall assemble my company and place myself in a strong position between here and Baton Rouge, and stand ready to resist the enemy's advance upon Mooreville," replied Tom. "The Federal General Butler has more than 100,000 men, and can easily spare some of them long enough to make our capital a heap of ashes; but the Governor shall hear that I harassed them while they were doing it, as our own Marion and his bold men used to harass the Redcoats."

Captain Tom slept in a planter's house that night, while his men bunked in the stables and corn cribs and under the trees in the yard, and the next morning made a wide detour to the river above the city with no other object in view than to be able to say, when he went home, that he had been there. If he had known what he was going to see and experience when he reached the river it isn't likely that he would have gone in that direction at all; for he halted his men behind the levee just in time to see a monster war vessel steaming leisurely up the swift, muddy current of the Mississippi. She was the blackest, ugliest looking thing that Tom's eyes had ever rested on, and the queerest sensations came over him as he gazed at her. It was not a cold day, but Tom shivered violently, and tasted something in his mouth that reminded him of salt.

Tom had been on the point of giving the signal for retreat, or trying to give it, but this astounding and reckless proposition staggered him so that he could not open his mouth. The man who made it showed that he was in earnest by swinging himself from his horse and advancing on all fours toward the levee, dragging his rifle along the ground at his side. In less time than it takes to tell it he and all his companions were lying prone behind the levee, using it as a breastwork, and Captain Tom sat in his saddle looking on like one in a dream. When they were all in position one of the Home Guards set up a warwhoop, a straggling fire ran along the top of the levee and bullets and buckshot went whistling toward the vessel. There were several men on her deck and around the wheel-house, and although Tom did not see any of them fall he did see that they were badly frightened, for they ran in all directions, and an instant later there was not one of them to be seen. The Home Guards yelled triumphantly and turned on their backs behind their breastwork to reload their guns. Then Tom managed to find his voice; but it sounded so strangely that he hardly knew whether it belonged to him or not.

Just then a wide, dark opening appeared in the side of the vessel nearest them, a black object came slowly out, a thundering concussion rent the air, and a thirty-two pound shell came at them. It shrieked fearfully as it flew over the levee above their heads, and made such a horrid din when it exploded in the thick woods behind them, scattering iron and branches about and cutting down twigs and leaves in a perfect shower, that for a single instant the Home Guards were motionless with astonishment and terror. They had not hurt the gunboat at all, but they had made her captain angry, and the fear that he might resent the insult to his flag by firing more shells at them sent the Home Guards to their saddles in hot haste; and with Captain Tom, who rode the swiftest horse, far in the lead, they struck out for home at a better pace than they had ever travelled before. And they never drew rein until they had left the dangerous neighborhood miles behind.

"It was the narrowest escape from an ambuscade I ever had in my life," said Captain Tom to the first man he met when he rode into Mooreville that night, "and if it hadn't been for my promptness in getting out of there I shouldn't have had a man left. We'd have been cut to pieces or captured, the last one of us. We didn't see any enemy except the ship we fired at, but a minute or so after she opened on us a battery of flying artillery, that had all the while been concealed in the timber in our rear, cut loose on us with all its guns, and it's a miracle that one of us escaped to tell the story of the battle."

"But my partner came from Baton Rouge to-day," said the man doubtfully, "and he declares that there are no Yankee troops in the country this side of New Orleans. So where did that battery come from?"

"Don't you believe any such stuff," replied Tom indignantly. "I tell you the woods are full of them, and they are liable to come to Mooreville between now and sunrise."

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