| Frankfort, KY |
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| Editor: B General Fred Arocha Asst. Editor: Ginger Arocha |
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| Robert E. Lee once remarked that without music, there would have been no army. |
| Reporter: Ted Harris |
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| The rider dismounts, hesitates, and adds his voice to the din. Not, however, until he has beaten repeatedly upon the door is any reply vouch-safed. Then a footstep approaches from within, and a stern voice questions him as to this name and purpose. "It’s me, uncle! Your nephew, Dan Byrne." A surprised ejaculation from a woman follows, and an indistinctly-heard colloquy. And again the stern voice addresses him, this time in deeper tones than before: "Go your ways, young man! You were my nephew, and are a rebel! What have you done with my son?" "Open, uncle, and I will tell you." And the applicant covered his face with his one hand, shuddered all over, and leaned against the door-post as if to preserve himself from fainting. The dogs, meanwhile, caper and whine around him, some of them scratching at the portal as though seconding the wretched young man’s request for admission. Another whispered dialogue occurs-the woman’s voice being heard in supplication-a heavy wooden bar is removed, and the door opens. A tall, resolute-featured man of seventy-five, with iron-gray hair, appears on the threshold, and behind him the handsome, anxious countenance of Harry Byrne |
| WAR IN THE BORDER STATES - PT 3 None but those who have actually experienced it can properly conceive of the apprehensions which throng the breast of him, howsoever brave, who knows himself to be alone in the midst of enemies who are invisible. The lion-hunter of Abyssinia is encompassed with peril when he makes a pillow of his gun in the desert; and our own pioneer slumbers but lightly in his new cabin when he knows that the savage, whose monomania is vengeance, is prowling the forest that skirts his clearing. But the lion is not always hungry; and even the Indian may be conciliated. The hunter confronts his terrible antagonist with something deadlier than ferocity. The hand that levels and the eye that directs the rifled tube are nerved and fired by "the mind, the spirit, the Promethean spark," which, in this case, is indeed a "tower of strength." And the settler, with promises and alcohol, may have won the savage to himself. But to the solitary scout, at midnight, every turn of the road may conceal a finger on a hair-trigger; every stump or bush may hold a foe in waiting. If he rides through a forest it is only in the deepest shadow that he dares ride upright; and should he cross an open glade, where the starlight or moonshine drops freely, he crouches low on the saddle and hurries across, for every second he feels he may be a target. His senses are painfully alive, his faculties strained to their utmost tensions. By way of a little episode, I knew a very successful scout, who met his death, however, on the Peninsula, who would always require a long sleep immediately after an expedition of peril, if it had lasted but a few hours, and had apparently called forth no more muscular exertion than was necessary to sit the saddle. But, strange as it may see, he would complain of overpowering fatigue, and immediately drop into the most profound slumber. And I have been informed that this is very frequently the case. I can only attribute it to the fact that, owing to the extreme and almost abnormal vivacity-I think of no better word-of the faculties and senses, a man on these momentous occasions lives twice or thrice as fast as ordinarily; and the usual nerve-play and wakefulness of a day and night may thus be concentrated in the brief period of a few hours. But to resume: I felt to the full this apprehension, this anxiety, this exhaustion, but the knowledge of my position and the issues at stake kept my blood flowing. I had come to the termination of the last plateau or plain, when the road led me down the side of a ravine, with a prospect ahead of nothing but darkness. Here, too, I was compelled to make more noise, as there was no sod for my horse to read on, and the road was flinty and rough in the extreme. But kept on as cautiously as possible, when suddenly, just at the bottom of the ravine, where the road began to ascend the opposite declivity, I came to a dead halt, confronted by a group of several horsemen, so suddenly that they seemed to have sprung from the earth like phantoms. |
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| "Why do you return so slowly?" said on of them, impatiently. "What have you seen? Did you meet Colonel Craig?" For a moment-a brief one-I gave myself up for lost; but, with the rapid reflection and keen invention which a desperate strait will sometimes superinduce, I grasped the language of the speaker, and formed my plan accordingly. "Why do you return so slowly?" I had been sent somewhere, then. "What have you seen?" I had been sent as a spy, then. "Did you meet Colonel Craig?" Oho! I thought, I will be Colonel Craig. No, I won’t: I will be Colonel Craig’s orderly. So I spoke out boldly: "Colonel Craig met your messenger, who had seen nothing, and advised him to scout down the edge of the creek for half a mile. But he dispatched me, his orderly, to say that the enemy appear to be retreating in heavy masses. I am also to convey this intelligence to General F.," The troopers had started at the tones of a strange voice, but seemed to listen with interest and without suspicion. "Did the Colonel think the movement a real retreat or only a feint? asked the leader. "He was uncertain," I replied, beginning to feel secure and roguish at the same time; "but he bade me to say that he would ascertain; and in an hour or two, if you should see one rocket up to the northern there, you might conclude that the Yankees were retreating; if you should see two, then you might guess that they were not retreating, but stationary, with likelihood of remaining inert for another day. "Good!" cried the rebel. Do you know the way to the General’s quarters?" |
| "I think I can find it," said I; "although I am not familiar with this side of the mountain." "It’s a mile this side of Sedley Mansion," said the trooper. "You will find some pickets at the head of the road. You must there leave your horse, and climb the steep, when you will see a farm-house, and fifteen minutes’ walk toward it will bring you to the General’s tent. I will go with you to the top of the road." And, setting off at a gallop, the speaker left me to follow, which I hesitated not to do. Now, owing to their mistake, the countersign had not been thought of; but the next picket would not be likely to swallow the same dose of silence, and it was a lucky thing that the trooper led the way, for he would reach them first, and I would have a chance to catch the pass-word from his lips. But he passed the picket so quickly, and dropped the precious syllables so indistinctly, that I only caught the first of them-"Tally"-while the remainder might as well have been Greek. Tally, tally, tally what? Good God! Thought I, what can it be? Tally, tally-here I am almost up to the pickets!-what can it be? Tallyho? No, that’s English. Talleyrand? No, that’s French. God help me! Tally, tally- "Tallahassee!" I yelled, with the inspiration of despair, as I dashed through the picket, and their leveled carbines sank toothless before that wonderful spell-the Countersign. Blessing my stars, and without further mishap, I reached the place indicated by the trooper, which was high up on the side of the mountain-so high that clouds were forming in the deep valley below. Making my bridle fast, I clambered with some difficulty the still ascending slope on my left. Extraordinary caution was required. I almost crept toward the farm-house, and soon perceived the tent of the rebel chief. A solitary guard was pacing between it and me-probably a hundred yards from the tent. Perceiving that boldness was my only plan, I sauntered up to him with as free-and-easy an air as I could muster. "Who goes there?" "A friend." "Advance and give the countersign." |
| I advanced as near as was safe, and whispered "Tallahassee," with some fears as to the result. "It’s a d-d lie!" said the sentry, bringing his piece to the shoulder in the twinkle of an eye. "That answers the pickets but not me." Click, click, went the rising hammer of the musket. |
| ON THE BORDER - Part 4 |