Agatha did not remain long in the little Pennsylvania town. She found its people to be positively peppery in their Union sentiments, and she soon realised that she could make no inquiries from that point without attracting dangerous attention to herself. She saw, too, that the little city was not large enough for easy concealment. She could not there lose herself in the crowd and pass unobserved whithersoever she pleased. She promptly decided that her best course would be to go on to New York, but even that could not be undertaken with safety for a time. She must remain where she was for two or three weeks—long enough for her presence there to lose its character as a novelty.
Sam, who enjoyed her confidence to the full, suggested that she should feign ill-health, and leave the place under pretence of seeking a residence better suited to her constitution. That was not the way in which Sam expressed his thought, of course, but he made himself clearly understood by saying:
"Tell you what 'tis, Mis' Agatha, you'se jes' got to git powerful sick an' say you cawn't live in no sich a pesky town as dis here one. Den you kin pack up yer things, ef you've got any, an' move on."
Agatha laughed, and answered:
"Why, Sam, I don't know how to be ill. I never had a headache in my life, and I couldn't look like an invalid if I tried. No, Sam, we must just wait here for a time."
"Why, Mis' Agatha, it's de easiest thing in de world to make out as how you'se sick when you ain't. I'se done it hundreds of times, when mammy wanted me to wuk in de kitchen an' I wanted to go a-fishin'. All you got to do is to look solemncholy-like, an' say you'se got a pain in yo' haid an' a powerful misery in yo' back, an' cole chills a-creepin' all over you. Tell you what, it's as easy as nuffin' at all."
Agatha laughed again, but put Sam's plan aside without further discussion, whereat that budding strategist went away sorrowful, muttering to himself:
"I done heah folks say as how 'white man's mighty onsartain,' but Mis' Agatha's a heap wuss'n even a white man, leastwise 'bout some things."
A week later, Sam presented another plan, which he had wrought out in his mind at cost of not a little gray brain matter.
"Mis' Agatha," he asked, "is you got any frien's in New York what you kin trus' to do what you axes 'em to do?"
"Yes, Sam. There's one gentleman there who will do anything I ask him to do. He's the one to whom I sent the papers that I made you carry till we got here."
"Den you kin write to him?"
"Yes, certainly."
"Well, now, I'se got a plan dat'll wuk as easy—as easy as playin' of de banjo. You jes' write to dat gentleman, an' git him to sen' you a telemagraph, sayin' as how somebody's a-dyin' over there, somebody yo'se powerful fond of, an' so you mus' come quick."
This time Sam's suggestion commended itself to his mistress's mind, and soon afterward there came a telegram to her, saying:
"Come quick if you want to see Eliza alive."
She hurriedly packed the few belongings which she had purchased in the Pennsylvania town, bade her friends good-bye, and before noon of the next day, was safely hidden in the little lodging which Marshall Pollard's friend had secured for her in New York. In the great city she might go and come and do as she pleased without fear of observation, and without the least danger of attracting attention to herself. There is no solitude so secure as that of a thronged city, where men are too completely self-centred to concern themselves with the affairs of their neighbours.
Agatha's first inquiries concerning Baillie's whereabouts were directed toward the military prisons and prison-camps, but in none of them could she find a trace of the master of Warlock. When she had completely exhausted this field of inquiry, a great fear came upon her, that the man she sought was dead. The presumption was strong that he had died of his wound before he could be sent to any of the prisons provided for captured Confederates. A less resolute person would have accepted that conclusion, but Agatha persisted in her search, extending her inquiries to all the hospitals of the Federal army, and within a month her persistence was rewarded.
What she learned was that Baillie Pegram's wound had been too severe to admit of his transportation far beyond Washington, and that he, in company with a few other prisoners in like condition, had been placed in an improvised hospital a few miles north of the capital city, where he still lay under treatment, with only a slender chance of recovery. Her first impulse was to go to Washington at once, and endeavour in some way to secure permission to enter the hospital as a nurse. Her friends in Washington and in Maryland discouraged this attempt, assuring her not only of its futility, but of its danger. They were convinced, indeed, that she could not even enter Washington, which was then a vast fortified camp, without the discovery of her identity by the agents of a secret service which had become well-nigh omniscient, so far as personal identities, personal histories, and personal intentions were concerned.
"Stay where you are," one of them urgently wrote her, "and keep yourself free to act if at any time a chance shall come to accomplish any good. It would spoil all and destroy the last vestige of hope, for you to attempt what you suggest. You can do no good here. You may do inestimable good if you remain where you are."
When this decision was communicated to Sam, his round black face became long, and the look of laughter completely went out of his countenance. But Sam was not an easily discouraged person, and he had come to believe in his own sagacity. So after a day or two of disconsolate moping, he set his wits at work upon this new problem. Presently an idea was born to him, and he went at once to lay it before Agatha for consideration.
"Mis' Agatha," he said, "even ef you cawn't git to Mas' Baillie, Sam kin, an' that'll be better'n nothin', won't it?"
"Yes, Sam," answered the sad-eyed young woman, "very much better than nothing. You could take care of your master, and be a comfort to him, and if the time ever should come when anything could be done for him, you'd be on the ground to help. But how can you get to him?"
"I could manage dat, ef I was a free nigga," answered the boy, meditatively.
"But you are free, I suppose," said Agatha. "You've been brought to a free State, practically with your master's consent, and that makes you free, I believe. But—"
"O, I don't want to be a sho' 'nuff free nigga," interrupted Sam. "I ain't never a-gwine to be dat. I'se a-gwine to 'long to Mas' Baillie cl'ar to de end o' de cawn rows. But I done heah folks up heah say dat de Yankees is a-sendin' back all de niggas what runs away from der mahstahs, an' ef I ain't got nuffin' to say I'se free, dey'd sen' me back to Ferginny ef I went down dat way whar Mas' Baillie is."
Sam's information on this point was in a measure correct. For in the singleness of his purpose to save the Union at all costs, and in his anxiety not to alienate the border slave States by interfering with slavery where it legally existed, Mr. Lincoln steadfastly insisted, during the first year of the war, that military commanders should restore all fugitive slaves who should come to them for protection, or where that could not be done, should list them and employ them in work upon fortifications and the like.
Agatha thought for a time, and then said:
"I think I can manage that, Sam. I'll try, at any rate. But I must wait till to-morrow. Tell me how you expect to get to your master."
"I don't rightly know yit, Mis' Agatha. But I'll git dar. Maybe you'll send a letter to yo' frien's down dat way, tellin' 'em Sam's all right, so's dey'll trus' me. Ef you do dat, Mis' Agatha, I'll do de res'."
It was impossible, of course, to execute legal papers setting Sam free, nor were any papers at all necessary for his use, so long as he remained in New York. But in Washington he might have to give an account of himself, and by way of making sure that he should not be seized as a runaway slave, and set to work upon the fortifications, Agatha's friend, the banker, gave him a document in which he certified that the negro boy was not a runaway slave, but was known to him as a legally free negro, who had been living in New York, but wished to go to Washington and elsewhere in search of employment.
Armed with this paper, and with full instructions from Agatha as to how to find certain of her friends, Sam set out on his journey full of determination to succeed in his affectionate purpose.
In Washington, he engaged in various small employments that yielded a revenue in the form of tips. He purchased a banjo, and ingratiated himself everywhere by singing his plantation songs, including both those that he had learned from others, and a few, such as "Oh, Eliza," which he had fabricated for himself. In the course of a week or two he learned all he needed to know about roads, military lines, and the like, and was prepared to make his way to the hospital where his master lay.
There he besought employment of menial kinds, at the hands of the surgeons and other officers, of whom there were only a very few at the post. Again he strummed his banjo and sang his songs to good purpose, impressing everybody with the conviction that he was a jolly, thoughtless, happy-go-lucky negro, and very amusing withal. The hospital was a very small one in a very lonely part of the country, and service there was extremely tedious to those who were condemned to it. Sam's minstrelsy, therefore, was more than welcome as something that pleasantly broke the monotony, and the officers concerned were anxious to keep the amusing fellow employed at the post, lest he go elsewhere. They gave him all sorts of odd jobs to do, from blacking boots and polishing spurs and buckles, to grooming a horse when privileged in that way, to show his skill in "puttin' of a satin dress onto a good animal," as he called the process.
Agatha had provided the boy with a small sum of money for use in emergencies, and, as his living had cost him nothing, he had considerably added to its amount. He cherished it jealously, feeling that it might prove to be his readiest tool in accomplishing his purposes.
For a time he was not permitted to enter the hospital, which was nothing more than an old barn in which a floor had been laid and windows cut. Four sentries guarded it, one on each of its sides. The patients within numbered about fifteen, all of them wounded Confederate officers, for whom this provision had been made until such time as they should be sufficiently recovered to be taken North to a military prison.
Being in no regular way employed at the post, Sam was free to go and come as he pleased, and he did a good deal of night-prowling at this time. He managed in that way to establish relations with certain of Agatha's friends, whose residence was ten or a dozen miles away. He visited them at intervals in order to hear from Agatha, and report to her through them. He had not dared inquire concerning his master in any direct way, or to reveal his interest in any of the hospital patients. But when two of them had died, he had asked one of the servitors about the place what their names were, and had thus satisfied himself that neither of them was Captain Pegram. By keeping his ears on the alert, he had learned also that there were not likely to be any further deaths, and that the remaining wounded men were slowly, but quite surely, recovering. Still further, he had heard one of the doctors, in conversation with the other, comment upon the remarkable vitality of Captain Pegram.
"That wound would have killed almost any other man I ever saw, but upon my word the man is getting well. Barring accidents, I regard him now as pretty nearly out of danger."
All this Sam duly reported to Agatha through her friends. It greatly comforted her, but it seriously alarmed Sam. For Sam had learned the ways of the place, and he knew that there was haste made to send every patient North, as soon as he was in condition to be removed without serious danger to his life; and Sam had begun to cherish hopes and lay plans which would certainly come to nothing if his master should be removed from the hospital to a military prison.
He determined, therefore, to find some way of getting into the hospital, communicating with his master, and finding out for himself precisely what the prospects were.
It was winter now, and besides the snow there was much mud around the hospital, which was freely tracked into it by all who entered. Peter, the rheumatic old negro man who was employed to scrub the place, complained bitterly of this. He said to Sam one day:
"Dese heah doctahs an' dese heah 'tendants is mighty pahticklah to have de place keeped scrumptiously clean, but dey's mighty onpahticklah to wipe dar boots 'fo' enterin' de hospital. Ole Pete's done got mos' enough o' dis heah job."
"Why don't yo' quit it, den?" asked Sam, with seeming indifference.
"'Case I can't 'ford to. I ain't got no udder 'ployment fer de rest o' de wintah, an' it's a long ways to blackberry time."
"How much does dey gib yo' fer a-doin' of it?"
"'Mos' nothin' 'tall—a dollah an' a half a month an' my bo'd."
"Yes, an' de job won't las' long, nuther," said Sam, sympathetically, "'cordin' to what I heah. De rebel officers is all a-gwine to git well, I done heah de doctahs say, an' when dey does dat, dey'll be shipped off Norf, an' dis heah 'stablishment'll be broke up. You'se too ole fer sich wuk, anyways, Uncle Pete. Yo' oughter be a-nussin' o' yer knees by a fire somewhars, 'stead o' warin' of 'em out a-scrubbin' flo's. You'se got a lot o' prayin' to do yit, 'fo' yo' dies,—'nuff to use up what knees you'se got left. Give up de job. Uncle Pete, and go off wha' you kin make yer peace wid de Lawd, as de preachahs says you must."
"But I cawn't, I tell you! I ain't got no money, an' I ain't got no 'ployment, 'ceptin' dis heah scrubbin'. Ef I had five dollahs, Ole Pete wouldn't be heah fer a day later'n day afteh to-morrow—dat's pay-day."
Sam sat silent for a time as if meditating on what he had it in mind to say, before committing himself to the rash proposal. Finally, he turned to the old man, and said:
"Look heah, Uncle Pete, I'se sorry fer you, sho' 'nuff I is. I'se done 'cumulated a little money, by close scrimpin', an' I'm half a mind to help yo' out. Lemme see. You'se a-gwine to git a dollah an' a half day after to-morrow. I kin spar yo' six dollahs mo'. Dat'll make seben dollahs an' a half. I'll do it ef you'll take pity on yerse'f an' go to town an' git yerse'f a easier sort o' wuk. Yo' kin owe me de six dollahs tell you git rich enough to pay it back."
The old man was inclined to be suspicious of a generosity of which he had never known the equal.
"Who'se a-gwine to take de job ef I gibs it up?" he asked.
"What de debbil do you k'yar 'bout dat?" asked Sam. "Anyhow, dey ain't a-gwine to raise de wages. Yo' kin jes' bet yo' life on dat. Yo' kin do jes' as yo' please 'bout 'ceptin' de offer I done made you. I oughtn't to 'a' made it, but I'se always a-makin' of a fool o' myse'f, when my feelin's is touched. Six dollahs is a lot o' money,hitis. Maybe yo' think I'm Mr. Astor, to go a-throwin' of money away like dat, or, maybe yo'se Mr. Astor yerse'f, to be hesitatin' 'bout a-'ceptin' of it. Reckon I bettah withdraw de offah—"
"Who'se a-hesitatin'?" broke in old Peter, hurriedly. "I ain't never thought o' hesitatin', Sam. I'll take de money sho', an' I thank you kindly for yer generosity, Sam. You'se a mighty fine boy, Sam, an' I'se always liked you ever since I fust knowed you. Now dat you'se a-behavin' jes' like as if yo' was my own chile, I reck'lec' dat I always had a fatherly feelin' foh you, Sam. Lemme have de money now, Sam, so's I kin go to sleep to-night a-feelin' I ain't got but one mo' day to do dis heah sort o' wuk."
"Yo' won't change yo' mind?" asked Sam.
"Sartain sho'! Wish I may die ef I do."
Sam regarded that oath as one likely to be binding upon any negro conscience, but he wished to take no risks; so putting on an air of great solemnity, and pushing his face to within four inches of the old man's, he said:
"Now you'se done swore it by de 'wish I may die,' an' you mus' keep dat sw'ar. Ef yo' don't, it'll be my solemn duty to carry out yo' wish by killin' you myse'f, an', 'fore de Lawd, I'll do it. Heah's de money."
Sam had so far commended himself by alertness and thoroughness in whatever he did, that he had no difficulty in securing what he called "de scrubbin' contract." He now had perfect freedom of hospital ingress and egress, but he felt that he must be cautious, especially in his first revelation of his presence to his master, who, he was confident, knew nothing of his being there. He feared to surprise some exclamation from Pegram, which would, as he phrased it, "give de whole snap away."
So on the first morning he began his scrubbing at the outer door, and moved slowly on his hands and knees along the line of cots, taking sly glimpses of their occupants as he went. It was not till he reached the farther corner of the large room that he found the cot of his master. Then with his face near the floor and scrubbing violently with his brush, he began intoning in a low voice:
"Don't say nothin', don't say nothin', don't say nothin' when yo' sees me. It's Sam sho' 'nuff, an' Sam's done come, an' don't you give it away."
To any one ten feet away, all this sounded like the humming of a chant by one who unconsciously sang below the breath as he worked. But to Baillie, who lay within a foot or two of the boy's head, the words were perfectly audible, and presently, without moving, and in a low murmuring voice, he said:
"I understand, Sam. I knew you were here. I heard you singing outside, many days ago."
Then the wounded man pretended to have difficulty in adjusting his blankets, and Sam rose and bent over the cot to help him. While doing so, he said:
"Mis' Agatha, she done brung me to New York, an' sent me heah to fin' yo'. How's you a-gittin'? Tell me, so's I kin report, an' tell me every day."
Baillie replied briefly that his wound was healing and his strength coming back, to which Sam answered:
"Don't you go fer to tell de doctah too much 'bout dat. Jes' keep as sick as you kin, while you'se a-gittin' well. I'll tell you why another time. Git 'quainted wid Sam more an' more ebery day, Mas' Baillie, so's we kin talk 'thout 'rousin' 'spicion."
In aid of this, Sam took pains, as the days went on, to establish relations with all the other patients who were well enough to talk, and as his inconsequent humour seemed to amuse them, the doctors made no objection to his loquaciousness.
It was one of the articles in Sam's philosophical creed that "yo' cawn't have too many frien's, 'case yo' cawn't never know when you may need 'em." Accordingly, he cultivated acquaintance with everybody, high and low, about the place, including the peculiarly surly man who brought the coal and the kindling-wood for the establishment. That personage was a white man of melancholy temper and extraordinary taciturnity. He went in and out of the place, wearing a long overcoat that had probably seen better days, but so long ago as to have forgotten all about them. The only other article of his clothing that was visible was a slouch hat, the brim of which had completely lost courage and could no longer pretend to stand out from the head that wore it, but hung down like a limp lambrequin over the man's eyes. The man himself seemed in an equally discouraged condition. He shambled rather than walked, and never answered a question or responded to a salutation, except in Sam's case. To him, when the two were alone, the man would sometimes speak a few words.
Sam was daily and hourly studying everybody and everything about him, with a view to possibilities. Nobody was too insignificant and nothing too trivial for him to note and consider and remember. "Yo' cawn't never know," he philosophised, "what rock will come handiest when yo' wants to frow it at a squirrel."
As the weeks passed, Baillie Pegram so improved that he sat up, and even walked about the place a little. One day, Sam learned that Baillie and three others were deemed well enough to be removed from hospital to prison, and that the transfer was to be made two days later. During the night after this discovery was made, Sam trudged through a blinding snow-storm—the last, probably, of the waning winter—to the house of Agatha's friends, ten or a dozen miles away, and back again through the snow-drifts, arriving at the hospital about daylight, as he had often done before, after a prowling by night.
He had made all his arrangements but one, and he had armed himself for that, by drawing upon Agatha's friends for ten dollars in small bills.
During the day, he managed to tell his master all that was necessary concerning the emergency, and his plans for meeting it.
"To-morrow 'bout sundown, Mas' Baillie," he said, at the last. "'Member de hour. When Sam speaks to yo' at de front do', yo' is to go ter yo' cot. Yo'll fin' de coat an' de hat a-waitin' fo' yo'. Put 'em on quick, an' pull de hat down clos't, an' turn de collah up high. Den walk out'n de back do' fru de wood-shed, an' pass out de gate, jes' as ef yo' was de ole man, sayin' nuffin' to nobody. Yo' mustn't walk straight like yo' always does, but shufflin'-like, jes' as de ole man does. Den mount de coal kyart an' drive up to de forks o' de road. Den shuffle out'n de coat an' hat, an' git inter de sleigh. Yo' frien's 'ull take kyar o' de res'."
Having thus instructed his master, Sam postponed further proceedings until the morrow. He had not yet opened negotiations with the old coal-man,—negotiations upon which the success of his plans depended,—but he trusted his wits and his determination to accomplish what he desired, and he had no notion of risking all by unnecessary haste.
Even when the coal-man came during the next morning, Sam contented himself with asking if he would certainly come again with his cart about sunset of that day, as he usually did. Having reassured himself on that point, Sam said nothing more, except that he would himself be at leisure at that time and would help bring in the load of wood.
Then Sam finished his scrubbing, and spent the afternoon in repairing the apparatus of his handicraft. He readjusted the hoops on his scrubbing-bucket, scoured his brushes, and ground the knife that he was accustomed to use in scraping the floor wherever medicines had been spilled or other stains had been made, for Sam had a well earned reputation for thoroughness in his work. Curiously enough, he this time ground the knife-blade to a slender point, "handy," he said, "fer gittin' into cracks wid."
When the coal-man came with a load of wood, a little before sunset, dumping it outside the gate, Sam was ready to help him carry it in and split it into kindlings within the shed. For this work, when the wood had all been brought in, the old man laid off his overcoat and hat. Thereupon Sam opened negotiations.
"I'se a-gwine to a frolic to-night," he said, "an' I'se a-gwine to have a mighty good time a-playin' o' de banjo an' a-dancin', but hit's powerful cold, an' de walk's a mighty long one."
Then, as if a sudden thought had come to him, he said:
"Tell yo' what! 'Spose yo' lemme wahr yo' overcoat. Yo' ain't got far to go, an' I'll give yo' a dollah fer de use of it."
The old man hesitated, and Sam was in a hurry.
"I'll make it two dollahs, an' heah's de money clean an' new," pulling out the bills. "Say de word an' it's your'n."
The offer was too tempting to be resisted, and the bargain was quickly made.
"Reckon I better go brush it up," said Sam, taking the garment and managing to fold the soft hat into it. He passed through the door into the hospital, cast his bundle upon Baillie Pegram's bed, and walked quickly to the front door, where his master was standing looking out upon the snow, now darkening in the falling dusk.
"All ready," the negro said, in an undertone, as he passed, and Captain Pegram wearily turned and walked toward his cot. Half a minute later, what looked like the old coal-man passed into the wood-shed, and out of it at the rear, whence, with shuffling steps he walked to and through the gate, mounted the coal-cart, and slowly drove away.
Sam, hurrying around the building, entered the wood-shed just as his master was leaving it, and confronted the owner of the coat and hat that Pegram wore. He was none too soon, for the old man, seeing Pegram pass, clad in his garments, thought he was being robbed, and was about to raise a hue and cry. Sam interposed with an assumption of authority:
"Stay right whah yo' is," he commanded, "an' don't make no noise, do yo' heah? Ef you keeps quiet-like, an' stays heah at wuk fer ha'f a hour, an' den goes away 'bout yo' business a-sayin' nothin' to nobody, you'll git another dollah, an' I'll tell yo' whah to fin' yo' clo'se. Ef yo' don't do jes' as I tells yo', yo'll git dis, an' yo' won't never have no 'casion fer no clo'se no more. Do yo' heah?"
Sam held the keenly pointed knife in his hand, while the old man worked for the appointed space of half an hour. At the end of that time, Sam said:
"Now yo' may go, an' heah's yo' dollah. Yo'll fin' yer kyart at de forks o' de road, an' yer coat an' hat'll be in de kyart. But min' you don't never know nothin' 'bout dis heah transaction, fer ef yo' ever peeps, dey'll hang yo' fer helpin' a pris'ner to escape, an' I'll kill yo' besides. Go, now. Do yo' heah?"
Sam watched him pass out through the gate and turn up the road. When he had disappeared, the black strategist muttered:
"Reckon dat suggestion 'bout gittin' hisse'f 'rested fer helpin' a pris'ner 'scape, will sort o' bar itse'f in on de ole man's min'. He won't never let hisse'f 'member nuffin' 'bout dis heah. Anyhow, Mas' Baillie's gone, an' it's time Sam was a-gittin' out o' this, too."
With that the boy secured his banjo and bade good night to the surgeon whom he met outside, saying that he was going to have a "powerful good time at de frolic."
Baillie Pegram found little difficulty in imitating the shambling gait of the old coal man as he walked to the hospital exit. In his weakness he could hardly have walked in any other fashion. He managed with difficulty to climb upon the cart, and to endure the painful drive to the forks of the road, somewhat more than half a mile away.
There he found a sleigh awaiting him, with four women in it, all muffled to the eyes in buffalo-robes, and a gentleman wrapped in a fur overcoat, on the box. The gentleman gave the reins to one of the ladies, and proceeded to help Pegram from the coal-cart, while the others stepped out upon the hard frozen snow.
The body of the sleigh was deep, and it had been filled with fresh rye straw. One of the gentlewomen parted this to either side, and spread a fur robe upon the floor beneath, into which the gentleman hurriedly helped Baillie, drawing the robe closely together over him, and replacing the straw so that no part of the fur wrapping beneath could be seen.
All this was done quickly, and without a word, the women resumed their seats, the man cracked his whip, and the spirited horses set off at a merry pace.
By way of precaution, a roundabout road was followed, and it was late when the sleighing-party reached its destination. There the women alighted and passed into the house. The gentleman drove the sleigh into the barn, with Baillie Pegram still lying under the straw. When the horses were unhitched, their owner directed the negro, who took charge of them, to walk them back and forth down by the stables to cool them off, before putting them into their stalls. It was not until the hostler was well away from the barn that his master removed the seats and lifted Baillie from his hiding-place under the straw. By that time, a young man, perhaps thirty years old, and strong of frame, had appeared, and the two hurriedly carried the now nearly helpless man into the house, where a bed awaited him. Stripping him, the younger man proceeded to examine the wound with the skilful eye of a surgeon.
"The wound has suffered no injury," he presently said to his host, "but the man is greatly exhausted. Will you heat some flat-irons, and place them at his feet? He must have nourishment, too, but of course it won't do to bring any of the servants in here—"
"I'll manage that," said the host. "We are all supposed to have been out on a lark, and I always have a late supper after that sort of thing. I'll have it served in the room that opens out of this. As soon as it comes, I'll send the servants away, and we can feed your patient from our table."
In the meanwhile, the ever faithful Sam, half frozen but full of courage and determination, was toiling over the flint-like snow, trying to reach the house before the morning. In order that he might the better keep his hands from freezing, he cast his banjo into a snow-filled ravine, saying:
"Reckon I sha'n't need you any more, an' ef I does, I kin git another." With that, he thrust his hands into his pockets, where his accumulated earnings reassured him as to his ability to buy banjos at will.
It had been a part of the plan of rescue that Baillie should remain but a brief while at his present stopping-place. It was deemed certain that a search for him would be made as soon as his escape should be discovered, and the house in which he had been put to bed that night was likely to be one of the first to be examined, wherefore Sam was anxious to reach that destination as soon as possible, lest he miss his master.
But when the morning came, Baillie was in a high fever, and the doctor forbade all attempts to remove him, for a time at least. As the day advanced, the fever subsided somewhat, and Baillie grew anxious to continue his journey. Finally, the doctor hit upon a plan of procedure.
"You simply must not now undertake the long journey we had intended you to make to-day, Captain," he said, "but the distance to my house in the town is comparatively small. I might manage to take you there this afternoon, if you think you can sit up in my sleigh for a five-mile ride, and then get out at my door and walk into the house without tottering on your legs."
Baillie eagerly protested his ability to endure the ride, and the doctor proceeded to arrange for it. Some clothing had already been provided in the house for Baillie to don in place of his uniform, and the doctor now said:
"I'm going to drive home at once. I'll be back before three o'clock. Get the captain into his citizen's clothes and have him ready by that time, but let him lie down till I come, to spare his strength. I've a patient in town, a consumptive, and I've been taking him out with me every fine day, for the sake of the air. He is not very ill at present, but he is one of us, and will be just as sick as I tell him to be when I get him here. I'm afraid I shall find it necessary to ask you to keep him for a day or two."
The hint was understood, and the doctor drove away behind a pair of good trotters. Before the appointed time he returned, bringing his patient with him, and at his request the sick man was put to bed in the room where Baillie had passed the night.
A few minutes later a party of soldiers rode up and reported that they were under orders to search the house for an escaped Confederate officer. The doctor, with a well assumed look of professional concern on his face, said to the officer in command of the squad:
"That is a trifle unfortunate just now. I have a patient in the adjoining room—a young man in pulmonary consumption. Of course you'll have to search the house, but I beg you, Lieutenant, to spare my patient. His condition is such that—"
"I'll be very careful, I assure you. I'll go alone to search that room, and make as little disturbance as possible."
Still wearing a look of anxiety, the doctor said:
"Couldn't you leave that room unexamined, Lieutenant? I assure you on my honour that there is nobody there except my patient."
The physician's anxiety suggested a new thought to the officer's mind.
"I take your word for that, Doctor. I believe you when you tell me there's nobody but your patient in that room. But your patient may happen to be the very man we want, even without your knowing the fact. Our man is very ill, recovering from a severe wound,—and he'd be sure to need a doctor after walking, as he must have done, a dozen miles in this snow. Pardon me, Doctor; I do not mean to accuse you of any complicity; but you are a physician, bound to do your best for any patient who sends for you, and to keep his confidence—professional ethics requires that. I shall not blame you if I find your patient to be my man. You are doing only your professional duty. But I must see the man. I can tell whether he's the one we want. Our man has been shot through the body, and the wound is not yet completely healed. My orders are to look for that wound on every man I have reason to suspect, and I must do my duty."
"O, certainly," replied the physician. "You'll find no wounds on my patient, and I earnestly beg you to avoid exciting him more than is absolutely necessary. You see, in his condition, any undue excitement—"
"O, I'll be very careful, Doctor, very careful, indeed."
"Thank you. It is very good of you. You see, as I was saying, in his condition, any undue excitement—"
"O, yes, I know all about that. You may trust me to be careful."
"Again thank you. Come, Bob," looking at his watch, and addressing Baillie, who was sitting by, "we must be going. I've half a dozen patients waiting for me."
Baillie rose, nerving himself for the effort, bowed to the lieutenant, and walked out of the house. A minute later, muffled to the ears in furs, the two men were speeding over the snow, with Sam clinging on behind, and playing the part of "doctah's man."
"Here," said the physician, handing Baillie a flask, "take a stiff swig of that. You must keep up your strength." Then after he had replaced the flask in his overcoat pocket, he chuckled:
"That was very neatly done—to have you walk away in that fashion from under the very nose of the man who was looking for you."
Sam echoed the chuckle, and Baillie said:
"I hope your patient will suffer no harm from all this!"
"O, not a bit. He's in the game, and he'll enjoy it, especially after they are gone, and he suddenly recovers from his extreme illness."
"But why was it necessary to take him there at all?"
"Why, under the circumstances, it would never have done for me to be seen driving away from there with a companion when I had been seen driving out there alone. As it is, your presence in the sleigh is satisfactorily accounted for to everybody who sees us. But how about your discarded uniform? Won't they find that?"
"No. Sam reduced it to ashes early this morning, and then aired the room to get rid of the smell of burning wool."
"That was excellent. Who thought of doing it?"
"Sam."
During all those months of waiting, Agatha Ronald had remained in New York, under the advice of Marshall Pollard's friend, who was accustomed to put his counsel into the form of something like a command whenever that seemed to him necessary. She was urged to remain in the city, too, by all her friends who were near Baillie Pegram's prison hospital. "Stay where you are," was the burden of all their letters. "You can do no good here, and you may do much harm if you attempt to come, while you will very surely be needed where you are, if we succeed, as we hope, in effecting Captain Pegram's escape. We shall do all that is possible to accomplish that, but when we do he will still be a very ill man,—for if he is to escape at all, it must be before he sufficiently recovers to be sent to a prison. You will be needed then to care for him somewhere, for, of course, he must not remain in this quarter of the country. Be patient and trust us—and Sam. For that boy is a wonder of devotion and ingenuity. He has just left us to return to the hospital before morning. He makes the journey on foot by night, three times a week, walking twenty odd miles each trip, in all sorts of weather. When we remonstrated with him to-night—for a fearful storm is raging—and told him he should have waited for better weather, he indignantly replied: 'Den Mis' Agatha would have had to wait a whole day beyond her time fer news. No sirree. Sam's a-gwine to come on de 'pinted nights, ef it rains pitchforks an' de win' blows de ha'r offen he haid.'"
So Agatha busied herself with such concerns as were hers. She laboured hard to improve the service of her "underground railroad," and sent medicines and surgical appliances through the lines with a frequency that surprised the authorities at Richmond. She corresponded in a disguised way with her friends in and near Washington, offering all she could of helpful suggestion to them and through them to Sam. It was by her command that Sam told his master, while in the hospital, just where and how she was to be found if he should escape, and how perfectly equipped she was to come to his assistance in such a case.
For the rest, she battled bravely with her sorrow and her anxieties, lest they unfit her for prompt and judicious action when the time for action should come. In brief, she behaved like the devoted and heroic woman she was.
After long months of weary waiting, her pulse was one day set bounding by the tidings that the master of Warlock had escaped from the hospital, and was in safe hands. This news was communicated by means of a telegram, which said only, "Dress goods satisfactory. Trimmings excellent."
Fuller news came by letter a day later, and it was far less joyous. It told her that the exposure, exertion, and excitement of the escape had brought Baillie into a condition of dangerous illness; that he lay helpless in the physician's house; that no one was permitted to see him for fear of discovery, except Sam, who had been installed as nurse.
Other letters followed this daily for a week, each more discouraging than the last. Finally came one from the doctor himself, in answer to Agatha's demand, in which he wrote:
"I labour under many difficulties. Captain Pegram's presence in my house must be concealed as long as that can be accomplished. I am a bachelor, and I often receive patients for treatment here, but in this case the man's illness is the consequence of a bullet wound, and should that fact become known, it would pretty certainly cause an inquiry; for my Southern sentiments are well known, and in the eyes of the governmental secret service, I am very distinctly a 'suspect.' The consequence of all this is that I dare not introduce a competent nurse into the house.
"Sam is willing and absolutely devoted, but of course he knows nothing of nursing. Yet nursing, and especially the tender nursing of a woman, is this patient's chief need. If he were in New York now, where political rancour is held in check by the fact that sentiment there is divided, and where people are too busy to meddle with other people's affairs, we could manage the matter easily. You can scarcely imagine how different the conditions here are. I might easily command the services of any one of half a dozen or a dozen gentlewomen of Maryland whom I could trust absolutely. But the very fact of my bringing one of them here to nurse a stranger, would set a pack of clever detectives on the scent, and within twenty-four hours they would know the exact truth.
"You will see, my dear young lady, how perplexing a situation it is. I hoped at first that Capt. P. might presently rally sufficiently to stand the trip to New York. I could have managed that. But he simply cannot be moved now, or for many weeks to come. It would be murder to make the attempt."
When Agatha had read this latter, her mind was instantly made up.
"I must go to him at all hazards and all costs, and nurse him myself. But first I must think out a way, so that there may be no failure."
She sat for an hour thinking and planning. Then she got up and hurriedly scribbled two letters. It was after nightfall, and Agatha had never yet gone into the streets by night. Her terror of that particular form of danger was great. But these letters must be posted at once, and by her own hand. There were no lamp-post mailing-boxes in those half-civilised days, and she must travel many blocks to reach the nearest post-office station. She took up the little pistol which she had so long carried for the purpose of defending her honour by self-destruction, if need should arise, examined its chambers, placed it beneath her cloak, and hurried into the street.
Then, as now, to the shame of what we call our civilisation, no woman could traverse the thoroughfares of a great city after dark and unattended without risk of insult or worse. Then, as now, a costly police force utterly ignored its duty of so vigilantly protecting the helpless that the streets should be as safe to women as to men, by night as well as by day.
During that little walk of a dozen city blocks through streets that the public adequately paid to have securely guarded, Agatha felt far more of fear than she had experienced while facing the canister fire of Baillie Pegram's guns.
She escaped molestation more by good fortune than by any security that police protection afforded or now affords to the wives and daughters of a community that calls itself civilised, and pays princely sums every year for a police protection that it does not get.
One of her letters was addressed to a friend in Baltimore. It gave her the address of Marshall Pollard's friend, the banker, and added:
"On receipt of this you are to telegraph, asking him to find and send you a nurse who speaks French—a Frenchwoman preferred. He will send me, in response to the demand, as Mlle. Roland,—an anagram of my own name. I shall speak nothing but French in your house, and afterward."
To Baillie's doctor she wrote:
"I think I see a way out of your difficulties. Can you not make a new diagnosis of Captain Pegram's case—finding him ill of tuberculosis, or typhoid, or some other wasting malady corresponding with his external appearance, thus concealing the fact that he suffers in consequence of a wound? He speaks French like a Parisian—I suppose he can even dream in that language, as I always do—so for safety and by way of forwarding my plan, you may regard him as a French gentleman who has fallen ill during his travels in America, and come to you for treatment. You are to be very anxious to secure a French nurse for him, and to that end you may write as soon as you receive this, to the gentlewoman whose address in Baltimore is enclosed, asking her to procure such a nurse if she can. I will be that nurse, and will know no English during my stay. This plan will enable me to go to Captain Pegram's bedside without exciting the least suspicion, and, when he is sufficiently recovered to travel, there will be little if any trouble in arranging for his nurse to take the convalescent to New York, and thence to Europe. Once out of the country and well again, he can go to Nassau, and thence to a Southern port on one of the English blockade-running ships. To secure all this we must scrupulously maintain the fiction that he is a Frenchman, and I a French nurse."
Agatha's first care on the next morning was to visit the banker and instruct him as to the part he was to play in the conspiracy, when the telegram should come from Baltimore. That done, she plied her needle nimbly, fashioning caps, aprons and the like, such as French nurses only wore at that time, before there were any trained nurses other than Frenchwomen among us. She was already wearing black gowns, of course, and when she added a jet rosary and a stiffly starched broad white collar to her costume, she had no need to inform anybody that she was a hospital-bred nurse from Paris.
In the little Maryland town where Baillie Pegram lay in a stupor, her advent attracted much curious attention, especially because of the jaunty little nurse's cap she wore, and of her inability to speak English. But this curiosity averted, rather than invited suspicion, as Agatha had intended and planned that it should do.
The physician's knowledge of the French language was scant, and his pronunciation was execrably bad, but he managed to greet the nurse in that tongue on her arrival, and to say, very gallantly:
"Now my patient should surely get well. Under care of such a nurse even a dead man might be persuaded back to life."
Agatha had been for more than a week at Baillie Pegram's bedside before he manifested any consciousness of her presence. But from the very first her ministrations had seemed to soothe him.
Even when his fever brought active delirium with it, a word from his soft-voiced French nurse quieted him, and each day showed less of fever and more of strength.
At last one day he lay quiet, and Agatha sat stitching at something near the foot of the bed. Her face was bent over her work, so that she did not see when he opened his eyes and gazed steadily at her for a time. Not until she looked up, as she was accustomed watchfully to do every little while, did he fully recognise her. Then, in a feeble voice, he spoke her name—nothing more.
She gently readjusted his pillows, and he fell into a more natural sleep than he had known since his relapse had befallen him.
When he waked again, Sam was sitting by, Agatha having left the room for a brief while.
"Who has been here, Sam?" the sick man asked.
"Nobody, Mas' Baillie, on'y de French lady what's a-nussin' of yo'," replied Sam, lying with the utmost equanimity, in accordance with what he believed to be the spirit of his instructions.
"I dreamed it, then. Tell me where I am, Sam."
"I ain't Sam an' yo' ain't Mas' Baillie; I'se jes'garshong, an' yo'se a French gentleman, an' yo' cawn't talk nuffin' but French, an' so 'tain't no use fer yo' to try to talk to me. Yo' mus' jes' go to sleep, now, an' when de French nuss comes back, yo' kin ax her in French like whatsomever yo' wants to know."
Baillie's bewildered wits struggled for a moment with the problem of his own identity, but before the French nurse returned he had fallen asleep again. It was not until the next day, therefore, that he had opportunity to ask Agatha anything, but his fever had abated by that time, and his mind was rapidly clearing.
"Tell me about it all, please," he said to her.
"Sh—speak only in French," she replied, herself speaking in that tongue. "It is very necessary, and address me as Mademoiselle Roland."
Then she told him so much as was necessary to prevent him from exercising his imagination in an exciting way. When she had explained that he was still in the house of the doctor who had aided him in his escape, and that the pretence of his being a French gentleman and she a French nurse was necessary for safety, she added:
"I came to you when you were very ill and needed me, and I shall stay with you so long as you need me. You mustn't talk now. Wait a few days, and you will be strong enough."
The prediction was fulfilled, and a few days later Agatha told him the whole story of her own and Sam's search for him, dwelling particularly upon Sam's devotion and the ingenuity he had brought to bear upon the problem of rescue. For at times when there was no possibility that anybody should overhear, Agatha had made Sam tell her all the details of that affair, until she knew as well as he did every word he had spoken and every step he had taken in the execution of his purpose.
Baillie's progress toward recovery was necessarily slow, but it was steady and continuous, and after many weeks, when he was permitted to sit up for awhile each day, he begged to hear about the progress of the war.
It was now September, 1862, and what she had to tell him was one of the most dramatic stories that the history of our American war has to relate.
McClellan had proved himself to be a great organiser and a masterful engineer, and he had at last tried to prove himself to be also a great general.
He had so perfectly fortified the city of Washington that a brigade or a division or two might easily hold it against the most determined hosts. He had organised the "regiments cowering upon the Potomac," and the scores of other regiments that had come pouring into the capital, into one of the finest armies that had ever taken the field in any country in the world. He had multiplied his artillery, and swelled his cavalry force to proportions that rendered it numerically superior to Stuart's "Mamelukes." He had so perfected his supply departments—quartermaster's, commissary's, medical, and ordnance—that their work was accomplished with the precision, the certainty, and the smoothness of well-ordered machinery.
He had brought under his immediate command a perfectly organised army, numbering nearly or quite two hundred thousand men.[1]The Confederates had in Virginia about one-fourth that number available for the defence of Richmond. Nor could this army of defence be reinforced from other parts of the South, for during the long waiting-time in Virginia, events of the most vital importance had been occurring at the West. Chief of these in importance, though the government at Washington was slow to recognise the fact, was the discovery there of a really capable commander—General Grant. He had captured Forts Henry and Donelson, thus gaining control of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, breaking the Confederate line of defence, and pushing the Southern armies completely out of Kentucky, and almost out of Tennessee. He was preparing, when McClellan moved, to complete that part of his work by fighting the tremendous battle of Shiloh.
Thus the Confederates could not afford to draw so much as a single regiment or battery from that field for the strengthening of Johnston's force in Virginia. Finally, early in March, Johnston had withdrawn from Centreville and Manassas to the immediate neighbourhood of Richmond.
It was in such circumstances that McClellan at last undertook to use the great army he had created, for the purpose it was meant to accomplish. Early in the spring, he transferred 120,000 men by water to Fortress Monroe, leaving seventy thousand at and near Washington, to hold that capital secure. Somewhat more than half of this force at Washington was to advance upon Richmond by way of Fredericksburg, and add forty thousand men to McClellan's great army when he should sit down before the Confederate capital. He, meanwhile, was to march up the peninsula formed by the York and James Rivers, supported by the navy on either side.
Richmond was seemingly doomed, and everywhere at the North the expectation was that McClellan, with his overwhelming forces and his well-nigh perfect organisation, would make an end of the war before the first anniversary of the battle of Manassas.
If McClellan had been half as capable in the field as he had proved himself to be in the work of organisation, this might easily have happened. But he was cautious to a positively paralysing degree. It was his habit of mind to overestimate his enemy's strength to his own undoing. Thus when he began his advance up the peninsula, with nearly sixty thousand men, to be almost immediately reinforced to one hundred thousand and more, he found a Confederate line stretched across the peninsula at Yorktown. It consisted of thirteen thousand men under Magruder, and with his enormous superiority of numbers, McClellan might have run over it in a day, while with his transports, protected by gunboats, he might easily have carried his army by it on either side, compelling its retreat or surrender. But in his excessive caution he assumed that the entire Confederate force was concentrated there, and his imagination doubled the strength of that force. He confidently believed that the Yorktown lines were defended by an army of eighty thousand or more, and instead of finding out the facts by an assault, he wasted nearly a month in scientifically besieging the little force of thirteen thousand men, with an army six or eight times as great, and a siege train of enormous strength.
When at last he had pushed his siege parallels near enough for an assault, he found his enemy gone, and discovered that the great frowning cannon in their works were nothing more than wooden logs, painted black, and mounted like heavy guns.
The North had not yet found a general capable of commanding the superb army it had created, or of making effective use of those enormously superior resources which from the beginning had been at its disposal. Grant had splendidly demonstrated his capacity at Shiloh, but Halleck had immediately superseded him, and completely thrown away the opportunity there presented. Grant was still denied any but volunteer rank, and for many weeks after Shiloh he was left, as he has himself recorded, with none but nominal command, and was not even consulted by his immeasurably inferior superior.
McClellan at last reached the neighbourhood of Richmond, and placed his great army on the eastern and northern fronts of the Confederate capital. But still permitting his imagination to mislead him, he confidently believed the Confederate forces to be quite twice as numerous as they were in fact. So instead of pressing them vigorously, as a more enterprising and less excessively cautious commander would have done, he proceeded to fortify and for weeks kept his splendid army idle in a pestilential swamp, whose miasms were far deadlier than bullets and shells could have been.
At the end of May the Confederates assailed his left wing, believing that a flood in the river had isolated it from the rest of the army, and a bloody five days' battle ensued, with no decisive results, except to demonstrate the fighting quality of the troops under McClellan's command.
Still he hesitated and fortified, and urgently called for reinforcements. These to the number of forty thousand were on their way to join him, marching directly southward from Washington.
But the Confederates had been more fortunate than their foes. They had found their great commander, a piece of good fortune which did not happen to the Federal armies until nearly two years later. After the battle of Seven Pines at the end of May and the beginning of June, Robert E. Lee assumed personal command of the forces defending Richmond, and from that hour the great game of war was played by him with a sagacity and a boldness that had not been seen before.
Lee's problem was to drive McClellan's army away from Richmond, and transfer the scene of active hostilities to some more distant point. To that end he must prevent the coming of McDowell with his army to McClellan's assistance. Accordingly he ordered Jackson to sweep down the Shenandoah valley, threatening an advance upon Washington in its rear, thus putting the Federals there upon their defence. He rightly believed that the excessive concern felt at the North for the safety of the capital would make Jackson's operations an occasion of great alarm.
The result was precisely what Lee had intended. Jackson swept like a hurricane through the valley, moving so rapidly and appearing so suddenly at unexpected and widely separated points as to seem both ubiquitous and irresistible. The Federal army which was marching to reinforce McClellan was promptly turned aside and sent over the mountains to meet and check Jackson. While it was hurrying westward, Jackson suddenly slipped out of the valley and carried his "foot cavalry"—as his rapidly marching corps had come to be called—to the neighbourhood of Richmond, where Lee was ready to fall upon his adversary in full force, striking his right flank like a thunderbolt, pushing into his rear, pressing him back in successive encounters, threatening his base of supplies on the York River, and finally compelling him to retreat to the cover of his gunboats at Harrison's Landing on the James.
All this constituted what is known as the "Seven Days' Battles." It was a brilliant operation, attended at every step by heroic fighting on both sides, and by consummate skill on both—for if Lee's successful operation for his enemy's dislodgment was good strategy, McClellan's successful withdrawal of his army from its imperilled position to one in which it could not be assailed, was scarcely less so.
But still more dramatic events were to follow. McClellan had been driven away from the immediate neighbourhood of the Confederate capital, but his new position at Harrison's Landing was one from which he might at any moment advance again either upon Richmond or upon Petersburg, which was afterward proved to be the military key to the capital. His army was still numerically stronger than Lee's, and it might be reinforced at any time, and to any desired extent, while Lee had already under his command every man that could be spared from other points. More important still, the fighting strength of McClellan's forces had been bettered by the battling they had done. The men were inured to war work now, and had improved in steadiness and discipline under the tutelage of experience.
Except that its confidence in its general was somewhat impaired, the Army of the Potomac was a stronger and more trustworthy war implement than it had been at the beginning. So long as it should remain where it was, Lee must keep the greater part of his own force in the intrenchments in front of Richmond, and the seat of war must remain discouragingly near the Confederate capital. In the meanwhile a new Federal force, called the Army of Virginia, had been sent out from Washington under General John Pope, to assail Richmond from the north and west, while securely covering Washington. Pope's base was at Manassas, and his army had been pushed forward to the line of the Rappahannock, where there was no army to meet it and check its advance upon Richmond.
Lee must act quickly. For should Pope come within striking-distance of Richmond on the northwest, McClellan's army would very certainly advance from the east, and Richmond would be threatened by a stronger force than ever before.
But Lee could not move in adequate force to meet and check Pope's advance, without leaving Richmond undefended against any advance that McClellan might see fit to make. His perplexing problem was to compel the withdrawal of McClellan, and the transfer of his army to Washington.
To effect this, Lee again played upon the nervous apprehension felt in Washington for the safety of that city. He detached Jackson, and sent him to the Rappahannock to threaten Pope, while remaining within reach of Richmond in case of need. This movement increased the apprehension in Washington, and a considerable part of McClellan's force was withdrawn by water. Thereupon Lee sent another corps to the Rappahannock, a proceeding which led to the withdrawal of pretty nearly all that remained of McClellan's army, to reinforce Pope, and the abandonment of the campaign by way of the peninsula. Lee instantly transferred the remainder of his army to the Rappahannock, leaving only a small garrison in the works at Richmond.
Pope was alert to meet Lee at every point, and he was being strengthened by daily reinforcements from what had been McClellan's army. But in Pope, with all his energy and dash and extraordinary self-confidence, the Federal government had not found a leader capable of playing the great war game on equal terms with Robert E. Lee. Grant and Sherman were still in subordinate commands at the West, while Halleck, who believed in neither of them, had been brought to Washington and placed in supreme control of all the Union armies.
Lee quickly proved himself greatly more than a match for Pope in the art of war. Making a brave show of intending to force his way across the river at a point where Pope could easily hold his own, Lee detached Jackson and sent him around Bull Run Mountains and through Thoroughfare Gap to fall upon his adversary's base at Manassas. As soon as Jackson was well on his way, Lee sent other forces to join him, while still keeping up his pretence of a purpose to force a crossing.
It was not until the head of Jackson's column appeared near Manassas that Pope suspected his adversary's purpose. He then hastily fell back from the river, and concentrated all his forces at Manassas, while Lee, with equal haste, moved, with the rest of his army, to join Jackson.
His strategy had completely succeeded, and he promptly assailed Pope, with his entire force, on the very field where the first great battle of the war had been fought, a little more than a year before.
Pope struggled desperately, but after two days of battle, he was completely beaten and forced to take refuge behind the defences of Washington.
This was at the beginning of September, just three months after Lee had taken personal command of the Army of Northern Virginia. Within that brief time he had done things, the simplest statement of which reads like a wonder-story. At the beginning of June a Federal army of 120,000 men lay almost within cannon-shot of the Confederate capital, while another Federal force about one-third as large was marching unopposed to form a junction with it, and still other Federal armies occupied the valley and sent raiders at will throughout Northern Virginia. At the beginning of September there remained no Federal army at all in Virginia to oppose Lee's will, whatever it might chance to be. McClellan with his grand army had been beaten in battle, and driven into a retreat which ended in his complete withdrawal, after a disastrous campaign, which at its beginning had seemed certain of success. Jackson had cleared the valley of armies superior to his own in numbers. Pope had been outwitted in strategy, beaten in battle, and driven to cover at Washington.
That was the story that Agatha related to Baillie early in September, when he was fit to hear it. It stirred his blood with enthusiasm, and bred in him an eagerness almost dangerous, to be at the head of his battery again, and a sharer in this splendid work of war.
"Your story is not ended yet," he said, when Agatha had finished. "It is 'to be continued,'—be very sure of that. Lee will not rest content with what he has done, marvellous as it is. He took the offensive as soon as he had disposed of McClellan. He will surely not now assume the defensive again, as our army did a year ago after the battle of Manassas. He is obviously made of quite other stuff than that of his predecessors in command. And here am I losing my share in it all,—a convalescent in charge of a nurse, and in hiding in the enemy's country. I tell you, Agatha, I must break out of this. As soon as I have strength enough to ride a horse, I must find a way of getting back to Virginia. And with the stimulus of strong desire, I shall not be long now in regaining that much of strength. In the meanwhile, I must think out a plan by which I can pass the Potomac without falling into the enemy's hands."
"I have already thought of all that," returned his companion, "and I have had others thinking of it, too,—all the friends in Maryland with whom I am in correspondence. After studying the conditions minutely we are agreed in the positive conviction that it will be impossible for you to get through the Federal lines, which are more rigidly drawn and more vigilantly guarded now than ever before. You cannot even start on such a journey without being arrested and imprisoned, and that would completely defeat your purpose."
"I must take the chances, then. For I simply will not sit idly here after I get well enough to sit in a saddle."
"Listen," commanded Agatha. "You are exciting yourself, and that is very bad for you. Besides, it is wholly unnecessary, for I have thought myself not into despair, but into hopefulness, rather. I have devised a plan, the success of which is practically assured in advance, by which you and I are going back into the Confederacy. No, I will not tell you what it is just now. You have excited and wearied yourself too much already. You must go back to your bed now, and sleep for several hours. When you wake, you shall have something to eat, and after that, if I find you sufficiently calm, I will tell you all about it. In the meantime, you may rest easy in your mind, for my plan is sure to succeed, and it will not be difficult of execution."