Spake As a Dragon Read online

  A while later he hears a ‘tap...tap...tap’ on the canvas. Luke peers out; there stands the man again.

  “I hope this helps,” the man said, handing Luke a few medical items and a ‘housewife.’ “Godspeed, my friends. No one should be treated like you gallant soldiers of the South. Animals! They treat you as animals – it’s that Devil Abraham Lincoln’s fault. Someone ought to do something about him – yes, that’s what I say, do something about him. Goodnight gentlemen,” and he disappears into the night.

  Luke opens the ‘housewife’ removes a needle and thread and stitches Jamie’s cut back together. The stranger had also supplied a bandage and some medicinal ointment, which Luke used generously.

  By early morning, the guards are beginning to arise. The muleskinners are hitching the teams to the wagons. Luke has stitched and bandaged Jamie’s wounds. He is awake, and Luke kneels beside him letting him take a sip or two of the cool spring water. Luke believes, maybe he will get better now. As Luke is putting the top back on the water can, he hears two guards outside his wagon talking.

  The first one says to the other, “You don’t say?”

  The second answers, “I ain’t lying that’s the honest truth...if I ain’t standing here. It was him I tell you...he was here last night in the tavern... he was wearing that black slicker.”

  “Well, I’ll be!” Said the first soldier. “Never thought I’d see him in the flesh...well I’ll be...!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  LUKE ESCAPES

  It has been three days since the wagon train left Surratt’s Tavern. Jamie finally aroused, woozy, but alert asks, “What happened Luke?” Feeling with his hand, “Who put the needle and thread to my head? All I remember is that Yankee striking me with the butt of his musket last night.”

  Luke smiles, “Last night you say? That was three days ago Jamie. I am the one who sewed you up after some stranger provided me with me some medical supplies. He also gave us food and water.”

  “Who was he Luke?”

  “I never found out for certain Jamie, but he doesn’t like President Lincoln, I can tell you that. I overheard one of the guards call him by name, but right now I cannot for the life of me remember who he was.”

  Luke, holding his right index finger into the air, rubbed his chin with the other absorbed in deep thought, “Give me a second and let me think, ”B,” yeah that’s right his name started with a “B,” I’m pretty sure it was a letter like that, Bolding, Boles, Bonner, no Booth! That’s it! His name was Booth...John Wilkes Booth. Those Yankees must have known him though, but I have never heard of him. Have you Jamie?”

  Jamie shakes his head, “Nah, but that don’t mean nothin’, he musta not been too important or we’d have heared about him. I’d say he was a kind man with a gentle heart tho’. Probably wouldn’t hurt a flea.”

  “Yeah, he did seem like he was more interested in savin’ lives than taken them.”

  “You figure us out a plan Luke?”

  “No, not yet, but I reckon we’ve got to make our move before we get to that prison camp. Once there I don’t believe we will have much of a chance to get away.”

  Before Luke finishes speaking the wagon driver yells, “Whoa! Whoa!” The wagon stops so fast Luke, who has been kneeling beside Jamie, falls to the wooden floor. He hears gunfire toward the front of the wagon train. The guard swings from the wagon’s seat grabs his rifle and heads at a run toward the sound of the firing. The commotion is being created by ‘E’ Company of Hampton’s Legion under the command of Captain James Knight. General Wade Hampton had been with General Lee on the retreat from Gettysburg when word was received that the Yankees were moving prisoners of war from the vicinity of Pennsylvania to Lookout Point, Maryland. General Hampton dispatched ‘E’ Company to do something about it – they had caught up with the wagon train a couple of days before it reached the prison camp.

  “Come on Jamie, now’s our chance – let’s go. Jump from the wagon and run into the woods. If we get separated go south. Just remember if you are facing the sun in the morning head to your right.”

  At the front of the wagon train, one of the Confederates fighting the Yankees is a man whose name Luke might not recognize – Sergeant Yancey Coker. He might not recognize his name, but Luke’s family had a connection with this Coker family. Yancey’s grandfather was Captain John Coker. The same John Coker that was guarding the two heavy-laden wagons out of Dahlonega, Georgia during the Revolutionary War – the same John Coker that fought beside Luke’s grandfather Jacob Ingram at the Battle of Scarburg Mill.

  Sadly the two will never meet, Luke hits the ground running, and Jamie still groggy follows, but isn’t nearly as fast. One of the Yankee guards sees Luke scampering into the woods beside the road, but he doesn’t have time to fire his musket, Jamie wasn’t as fortunate. The guard draws a bead on Jamie, cocks the hammer and fires. Luke stops in the tree line long enough to see the bullet tearing through Jamie’s back and exiting above his right armpit, killing him instantly. Luke turns from the bloody scene, he knows there is no reason to go check on him, using the same advice he had just given Jamie, he heads south.

  A few wagons up in Robert’s wagon, one of the prisoners lying on the floor comments, “Whosever is shootin’ at us must’ave stirred up a hive of bees, listen?”

  “Bees, the Devil,” says Robert, “Those are bullets comin’ through our canvas. Keep your head down!” The men in the wagon needed no encouragement they hug the floor as though they are squeezing their long ago sweethearts.

  Robert thought of slipping out the back of the wagon and trying to escape; however, with his wound in his chest and the bullet gash on his head, he knew he had little, if any, hope of making a successful escape. He lay on the floor of the wagon listening to the ‘bees’ zing through the canvas cursing his luck. Finally, the noise of the rifles began to abate, and the wagon train began to move once again. He knew another rough day slipping and sliding should bring Point Lookout mighty close.

  He is right. The next day around mid-morning the wagons pull into Lookout Point. The men in the wagons do not have to look outside to verify they had arrived – they could tell by the smell! Most of the Rebs in the wagons have been raised on farms – they have never smelled anything around their barns that reeked as badly. One man remarked he always thought his hog pen had a bad odor, he now believed his hog pen smelled better.

  Chapter Nineteen

  MORGAN’S MAURAUDERS

  Luke ventures into the woods a couple of miles, sits down on a fallen tree and tries to plan his escape. He tries hard to remember his geography he had learned while in school. He knows the southern peninsula of Maryland is bounded on the north by the Patuxent River and on the south by the Potomac River. Luke figures it must be about ten miles to the Potomac. It is late in the afternoon; if he can find a place to hide out overnight he should be able to reach the river sometime tomorrow. Once across the river, he will be back in the good old Confederate States of America, the state of Virginia in particular. He believes he can get to Richmond. From Richmond, he might work his way west to the Shenandoah Valley. The Yankees have raided the Valley so many times that the residents there hate the Yanks with a passion, and will be very sympathetic to his plight. From the Valley of the Shenandoah, it is only a couple of day’s journey to Knoxville, then down to Chattanooga. From Chattanooga, he can easily continue south to Huntsville, Alabama. Then to Albertville and home just up the mountain.

  It is sundown darkness is enveloping the forest. Luke must find suitable shelter for the night. He finds a large overturned oak with a massive trunk. From its looks, it had not fallen too long ago. The truck and branches covered with leaves will make a suitable place to slip under to bunk down for the night. If he only had some food, he would be quite comfortable. During his trek through the woods he ran across a place that, obviously, had been used as a campsite by the Yankees a few days earlier. He did not find any food, but he did uncover a powder horn full of powder, a cartridge cas
e with ten or twelve percussion caps and a rifle with a broken stock and barrel. It appears a bullet or a piece of shrapnel struck the barrel deforming it greatly. He strikes the musket against a tree trunk breaking off the useless barrel. All he wants is the trigger group with the percussion cap nipples.

  Luke places more branches around his campsite creating a small hidden enclosure; he piles up a mound of leaves for a bed. A few twigs and a couple of pieces of wood he has readied himself the makings of a small campfire. He pours a small amount of black powder under his pile of kindling places a percussion cap on the nipple, holds it close to the black powder and pulls the trigger. The flash sets the gun power afire, it in turn sets the kindling ablaze. Perfect, now that he has a small fire burning, the warmth from its glow makes him feels better already.

  Luke crawls into the pile of leaves exhausted. In the distance, a couple of whip-poor-wills endlessly chant back and forth to each other. Directly overhead the hooting of a great horned owl lets the forest know he is alive and on guard. Off in the wood’s far recesses the mournful cooing of a dove is heard calling its mate. Luke listens to this wonderful symphony of nature – they are free, and so is he. In a moment, he drifts off into a peaceful, sound sleep.

  It is still dark an hour or so before sunup, but the northern mockingbird is already up mimicking every bird it has ever heard. He is not the only one up this summer morning - a man gently taps Luke on the forehead with a pistol’s cold, steel barrel. Luke deep in sleep grunts and turns over. The man gives Luke a swift kick to his hind side – this gets Luke’s attention.

  “Getup,” the man demands. “Who are you? And what are you doing out here in my woods?”

  Luke still half asleep cannot think of a quick answer.

  Poking Luke in the stomach with the end of an Army revolver the man clearly annoyed repeats his question, “Who are you I say?”

  His head clearing, Luke replies, “Luke Scarburg... Private Luke Scarburg recently of the Army of Northern Virginia.”

  “You a Rebel, huh? What’s you doin’ hidin’ under this here tree?”

  Luke explained how he had participated at Gettysburg with his brother and father. Both had been wounded or killed. Luke told of being captured, put on a wagon train to Point Lookout, Maryland. Attacked by a force of Confederates, escaped, made his way through the woods, and until disturbed was enjoying a restful sleep under this fine old oak tree.

  The man, dressed in civilian clothes, asks what is Luke’s plan of escape. Luke explains how he has envisioned his path from Maryland to Alabama. He tells the unknown fellow with the pistol how he is through with fightin’ and he is heading home.

  “Why do you care? You’re a civilian, why are you so concerned about where I am headed?”

  “In reality, Private Scarburg, I’m not a civilian. I’m Captain Benjamin James of General John Hunt Morgan’s band of guerillas; we’re a clandestine operation, and don’t use uniforms or visible rank.”

  “In other words, you all are spies. If caught, you will be hung.”

  “No, hardly, we’re a partisan force that operates legally behind the enemy lines. The 1862 the Partisan Patriot Act was passed by the Confederate Congress authorized the formation of units like ours and gives us legitimacy, which places us in a different category than the common 'bushwhacker.’ Allow me to comment on your escape – I don’t know how you figure to make it across the Potomac, but let’s suppose you find a way you will then be faced with the 20th Massachusetts, the 10th New York and the 28th Ohio. They will be between you and Richmond. If, by chance you make it to Richmond, the trip to the Shenandoah will be over trails, there are no passable roads that are not swarming with Yankees. You might make it the rest of the way south, but your chances are very slim.”

  “Well, that’s fine Captain, but I have no idea where my old unit is and even if I did I have no way to get to them. What am I supposed to do – I don’t want to spend the rest of the war in a prisoner of war camp.”

  The Captain replies, “Come with me to our camp.”

  “I have no skills that you could use Captain!”

  “You can shoot and ride a horse can’t you?”

  “Well, yes, yes of course I can do that.”

  “Then we can use you, come on I will introduce you to General Morgan.”

  Leaving Luke’s campsite, the Captain and Luke ride double for a couple of miles through the thick underbrush of the forest. After an hour or so Luke smells smoke from a campfire, he can hear whinnying of horses and the muted talk of men. Rounding a curve in the trail the Captain and Luke are stopped by two sentinels, and allowed to pass. Luke is in the midst of John Hunt Morgan’s camp. The white Army tents have been arranged in a semi-circle – the Yankees have only one way in and one way out. General Morgan’s tent is pitched in the center. Two guards are posted on either side of the opening to his tent.

  Dismounting Captain James barks orders to the two sentries standing guard. “Arrest this man, he is a Union spy. Tie him to that tree over yonder.”

  “Wait! Wait, I tell you I am no spy...I am an escaped prisoner of war.”

  As the guards grab Luke the Captain says to Luke, “So, you thought I was buying all that hogwash talk about you escaping and all...what do I look like, a fool?”

  “No Sir,” said Luke, “all I said was the honest truth.”

  “Sergeant,” the Captain said, speaking to a soldier running up. “Assemble a firing squad, we’ve got ourselves a Yankee spy.”

  Luke is bodily dragged to a nearby tree. His hands are lashed behind and five men with muskets stand in a line about twenty paces to his front.

  “Do you require a blindfold?” Questions the Captain.

  “No, but wait, wait you are making a terrible mistake, I am not a spy.”

  “Men of the firing squad, ‘Make ready your weapons!” The men raise their muskets, pull the hammer in the ready position and wait for the order to fire.

  The Captain raised his sword high above his head, “Ready... aim...”

  “Wait,” said Luke, “I’m telling you, I was with the 48th Alabama Infantry. Hear me! The 48th Alabama! I am not a spy!”

  A slightly built man steps to the opening of the tent. He is dressed in a Confederate General’s uniform. A long cavalry saber hangs from his waist, so long, if fact, its end drags the ground. He is slightly bald, sports a mustache and goatee. Luke figures him to be in his late thirties or early forties. His steel grey eyes seem to pierce Luke through and through.

  “Hold on! Did he say the 48th Alabama?” The General asks. “Bring him to my tent.”

  Luke enters the commander’s headquarters. General Morgan is sitting at his camp table writing. Without looking up, he motions Luke to take a seat.

  Placing his pen on the table, Morgan stares at Luke. Luke remains sitting ramrod straight, at attention. “So, I see by the absence of stripes on your sleeves you must be a private, is that right son?” Before Luke can answer the General continues, “You must not be much of a soldier or you would have been promoted. Am I right?”

  Again Luke can not answer, General Morgan stands up and walks across to stand in front of Luke, “You a deserter? A coward? Or are you a Yankee spy as the Captain says. What’s your unit?”

  The General hesitated after asking these questions. Luke also arose and comes to attention, “No, no Sir, I’m not a deserter, nor a coward, and I am certainly not a spy. I belonged to the 48th Alabama Infantry, or what is left of them, I guess, and I fought in every battle they were engaged in, up to and including Gettysburg.”

  “A yellow-hammer huh? Alabama boy, then what you doing in my woods?”

  “Well Sir, you see I was captured at Gettysburg and those blue-bellies were hauling us to the prison at Point Lookout, Maryland. We were ambushed by a sizeable force of Rebs, I saw my chance, took it and escaped.”

  “Escaped you say? Where’d you think you were goin’, back to Alabama?”

  “Sir, yes Sir, that was my plan.”

 
“Foolish lad...foolish. You’d been lucky to get across the Potomac, much less get all the way to Alabama. I know of what I speak, I was born in Huntsville.”

  John Hunt Morgan was born in Huntsville, Alabama, the eldest of ten children of Calvin and Henrietta (Hunt) Morgan. His father, Calvin Morgan, lost his Huntsville home in 1831 when he was unable to pay the property taxes following the failure of his pharmacy. The family then moved to Lexington, where he would manage one of his father-in-law's sprawling farms. In 1846, Morgan joined the Fraternal Order of Freemasons, at Daviess Lodge #22.

  “Huntsville?” Asks Luke. “My family lives in Albertville, just thirty miles away.”

  “Albertville you say... I suppose a Yankee spy would never have heard of Albertville. Have you ever heard of Guntersville, Alabama?”

  “Of course General, Guntersville is on the Tennessee River mid-way between Huntsville and my hometown of Albertville.”

  “Good life-saving answer son, if you ain’t a deserter and want to keep fightin’ the blue-bellies I have a proposition for you – join up with us. You’ll see all the fightin’ you want. What you say Alabama?”

  “Well, uh, well..,” Luke could think of nothing to say. “If its all the same to you Sir, I think I will continue on my way south.”

  “Before you give me your final answer I must warn you of a few things. First we fight behind enemy lines, we wear civilian clothes and our mission is to find and destroy the Yankee’s supply lines, cut telegraph wire, wreck trains and kill the blue-bellies in their sleep if the chance arises. But, one thing – you cannot contact your family, in any method. No communication what so ever. You cannot write a note or letter to the folks back home. To them you are either dead or missing in action. Albertville, as of this date, no longer exists for you. We officially do not exist, neither will you, and we want it to stay this way. Do I make myself clear?”