Spake As a Dragon Page 11

“Yes Sir.”

  “If you want to kill Yankees, and help end the War sooner, riding with me is the place to do it. A couple of other things I need to mention, Alabama. You can join up with me, which I suggest strongly, and secondly, I believe you are a Reb from Alabama, as you say, but I can’t take a chance on you getting caught and exposing the existence of our unit to the Yankees. If you do not choose to ride with me, sorry as I may find it, I will have you shot!”

  Thinking for only a brief moment Luke replies, “Thank you Sir, now that I have given it more thought, I believe riding with you would be an honor.”

  “Good... good choice.” The General reached across the table and grasped Luke’s hand. As the two men shoot hands the General recognized the secret Masonic handshake Luke used. “Ah,” said General Morgan, “I see you are a traveling man?”

  “Yes General, Lodge 663, Albertville, Alabama.”

  “Daviess Lodge 22, Lexington, Kentucky.” He said, showing Luke his gold ring with the compass and square insignia. The General grabbed Luke and hugged him as a ‘brother’ in the Masonic Order.

  Stepping back Luke said, “General everything I have told you is on the square.” General Morgan knew exactly what Luke was saying. This expression between Master Masons was indisputable evidence of a true statement, not to be challenged.

  “Good, good my brother I now know who you are, most of my men are raw recruits, but you are an experienced soldier, as of this moment I am promoting you to Lieutenant. You will command Company ‘F,’ Captain Thornton was killed on our last raid; I need someone experienced to take his place.

  “Thank you General, I’m your man.”

  “Come over to my table Lieutenant and I will show you our next excursion into the North.”

  General Morgan has a large topographical map on his desk. It covers the area from eastern Tennessee all the way to Indiana and Illinois. Pointing at a section on his map he explains, “I am hoping to divert Union troops and resources in conjunction with the Confederate operation in Vicksburg, I am calling this campaign “Morgan’s Ride for Freedom”. I intend to cross the Ohio River, and raise havoc across southern Indiana and Ohio.”

  In late summer 1863, General Morgan’s Ride for Freedom ends at a little place called Corydon, Indiana. His raiders confronted the Union Home Guard in a battle that resulted in eleven of his Confederates getting killed and five of the Home Guard were killed or wounded.

  After the battle, Morgan’s men ride ten miles southwest and set up camp on the banks of the Ohio River. The sun is down, darkness is upon them, and the moon is full. Luke is out walking around the tents checking on his men. Off in the distance he hears a softly played melody being played on what he thinks is a harmonica. He stops and listens intently. It is a harmonica, but playing bugle calls. Over and over different calls are being played, ‘Reveille’, ‘Boots and Saddle’, ‘Gallop’, ‘Charge’ and ‘Commence Firing’. Luke recognizes them all. He begins to weave through the tents looking for the source of the soothing musical refrain. Turning the corner of one tent, he finds a young man sitting by a campfire playing his harmonica. Seeing Luke, the youthful boy snaps to attention. “At ease”, says Luke, “Sit back down and tell me what you are doing.”

  The young soldier explains he is Oliver, Private Oliver Norton, the new bugler, and needs practice, but the bugle makes too much noise, so he is using his harmonica. Luke asks if he knows a soft melodious bugle tune that can be played as the troops are bedding down for the night. Something calming that will settle them down, and put the men to rest. Oliver explains to Luke he has a bugle call he has written himself that should fit the requirement, but he has never played it to any of the troops. He said he called it ‘The Army’s Perfect Sonata’.

  “Play it for me.” Oliver places the harmonica to his lips, when he finishes, Luke sits there, stunned. The tune was beautiful. Finally, Luke speaks, “That is the perfect tune!”

  “But one suggestion Oliver, that name is too long. Why not just call it the first letter of each word - T.A.P.S., and beginning tonight I want you to quietly play TAPS each evening at exactly 9 pm, without fail.”

  Later Luke enters his tent and begins to unbuckle his cavalry sword when he hears the quite refrain of Oliver’s tune echoing across the stillness of the camp. Listening to the blissful sound, he thinks of these words to accompany the notes

  Day is done, gone the sun,

  From the hills, from the lake,

  From the sky.

  All is well, safely rest,

  God is nigh.

  He checks his pocket watch – 9 p.m., right on the dot.

  Chapter Twenty

  POINT LOOKOUT

  “All right you Johnny Rebs, get outta them wagons you’s home,” the Yankee guard said pounding on the side of the wagon with the butt of his rifle. The harrowing ride from Washington to Point Lookout is finally over.

  Robert and Ben jump from the bed of the wagon to the ground. What they see amazes them. They scan over the entire expanse of the Point Lookout prisoner of war camp.

  The place is located on the extreme tip of St. Mary’s county, Maryland, on a spit of land where Chesapeake Bay converges with the Potomac River. It is a sandy piece of ground with plenty of marshy land. Due to its very location, the Point is sweltering in the summer months, and a brisk wind from the Atlantic causes freezing cold in the winter.

  Point Lookout proper covers a little over 600 acres; however, the Confederate prison itself encompasses only a forty-acre lot. It is enclosed by a high board-fence. All around the top of the fence is a walkway, which the armed sentinels constantly patrol. From the top of the fence, the guards can see what is going on, both inside and out. The waters of the Chesapeake Bay, to which the prisoners have free access, bound the back of the prison compound on the north. In this water, they can bathe, fish and wash their clothes. The inmates referred to Point Lookout as the ‘pen’.

  Robert and Ben are shoved through the gate into a small building just within the prison entrance. A hand painted sign over the door reads, ‘Incoming.’ The standard operational practice once they get inside is to have all incoming prisoners searched, and all valuables or money confiscated. Valuables are, supposedly, stored for safekeeping and money if they have any is credited to their account in the form of an entry in a passbook that the prisoner gets to keep. These credits can be exchanged at the Sutler’s store to purchase a short list of available items. The draw back to the former practice: most if not all captured Rebels do not have money. In the vast majority of cases, the Confederates have not been paid since joining the Confederate States of America’s army. Once searched and accounted for the prisoners are released to fend for themselves within the walls of this hellhole called Lookout Point prison.

  The search completed, Robert and Ben, walk outside the Incoming Office and find themselves standing on the debris-strewn main road within the prison. This thoroughfare is named Pennsylvania Avenue, also known as ‘Robbers Row.’ Walking down the filth-littered road, they notice a small wooden shack, obviously made from the discarded wooden cases used to ship the life-sustaining crackers, also known to the soldiers as hard tack. Over the door is a hand-painted sign proclaiming, ‘Chains, rings, made here at shortest notice’. Inside are two Rebel men making watch fobs and other small items of intrinsic value, using horsehair. Finger rings are made from buttons. The workmen are as skilled as any Yankee journeymen in the North, in spite of the primitive nature of the tools they use to accomplish their tasks.

  The prison area is a confused mass of tents and houses. Men, the majority of who are emaciated, limp and struggle to and fro the best they can. Some are getting around on makeshift crutches, others are being helped along with the aid of a buddy. The sounds they hear are a medley of noise, not unlike sounds heard on a busy city street; however, they have never witnessed a street with the sides littered with the skinny, skeleton-like, anorexic rabble of ragged men, most simply lying where they have fallen.

  Up and down Pe
nnsylvania Avenue they see a couple of frame building, the Sutler’s Store and a post office. Side streets empty into this main street. These side streets are lined on both sides with the dwellings of the prisoners. Most are tents some are cracker box houses.

  As Robert and Ben progress through the streets they are amused at some of the names above the prisoner’s quarters, “Virginia Hall”, “Louisiana Country”, “The Rebel Retreat” or “Rebel Den”. They discover there are actually three Rebel Camps in the Point Lookout location. The one they are presently in, the one next-door is the Rebel officer’s quarters, the third is north of the prison compound; this facility houses the “galvanized” Rebels. Galvanized Rebels is the name other prisoners call Rebels who have switched sides and taken the ‘Oath of Allegiance’ to the United States.

  Also up and down the main street of Pennsylvania Avenue they find homemade booths of every description. Some selling tobacco, others peddle fruit; still others are plying a variety of vegetables. All available for a price Robert and Ben find out. “Real” money cannot be used to purchase anything – the prison has its own currency. One Confederate dollar is worth one piece of hardtack and one plug of tobacco. All money transactions must go through the Commissary Officer, who makes the appropriate entries in the prisoner’s passbook. The booths, or their merchandise is of little concern to Robert and Ben; between the two of them they do not have two half-dimes to rub together.

  Quarters, quarters! They must find somewhere to live.

  White Army tents used by the other prisoner’s quarters are lined up and down the side streets; however, the camp was designed to hold approximately 10,000 prisoners, right now it is crammed to over-flowing with over 15,500. Every tent is occupied with its allotment of twelve persons, plus some extra bodies crowded into most, if not all of them.

  As night descends, the darkness finds Robert and Ben huddled up in an empty spot next to one of the Sutler tents. The ground is hard and still damp from the recent rains. Maybe tomorrow they might find out the lay of the land – right now they are ‘newbies’, they need someone to show them the ropes. Upon arriving at Point Lookout, no one tells them anything – after being searched they are merely thrown into a mass of humanity within the prison walls without instructions of any kind.

  Finally, morning arrives. Robert and Ben think the previous night ranks among the worst they have ever endured during the war. They both are weak from lack of food and water. Their joints and muscles are stiff, but they both are still alive. It is morning, but no one has explained anything about the camp. What are they to do?

  Robert notices a large number of soldiers hurrying toward one of the wooden buildings. Robert and Ben join the crowd and follow along.

  The men, accompanied by Robert and Ben, enter a plain, board building. Robert can see it is a large eating room. There are five long tables down the center. He guesses the dining hall can feed around five hundred at a time. The table furniture is extremely primitive, topped with tin cups and tin plates. These eating utensils look as if they have been through a war – and lost. Breakfast is about as bad – a cup of very weak coffee, with the addition of one spoonful of molasses stirred in. Squeezing onto a bench at one of the tables they sit sipping their coffee. After the second taste Robert isn’t even sure it is coffee. A bowl, of what appears to be mush, sits on the table. They have no forks or spoons with which to eat. Robert and Ben dip out whatever it is in the bowl and place it on their plate and try, as best they can, to eat it with their dirty hands. A prisoner next to Robert informs them if they have a need, and they do, of a spoon they must fashion one themselves using a piece of wood. It must be kept with them at all times or other inmates will steal it.

  While sitting at the table eating and drinking their breakfast the best they can, Robert casually mentions the meager offering they are having. He said back in the old 48th Alabama, even on their worse day their fare was better than this.

  From across the table one prisoner, looking across the top of his cup, replies, “Gents, be thankful, some morning we don’t even git the mo-lasses or the mush.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Robert, “I’m beginning to realize y’all have had it bad here, I was just thinking out loud. Forgive me for my ignorance.”

  “Excuse me for asking, but did I hear one of you say y’all was with the 48th Alabama?”

  Robert introduces himself and Ben. He explains he is the one from Hood’s Division, 48th Alabama and Ben was with the McLaw’s Division, 10th Georgia.

  “Where’d they git y’all”

  Robert tells how he and Ben were captured at the Battle of Gettysburg. He tells how he was stabbed with a Yankee bayonet and how a mini-bullet bounced off his head, Yank or Reb, he didn’t know. His head has healed, and the hole in his chest has almost healed, but it is still quite sore. “Why do you ask?”

  “My name is Luther Street, Private Luther Walker Street, I was with the 21st Alabama at Pittsburg Landing. Them Yankees caught me down there in ’62. At first they sent me to Camp Douglas up around Chicago way then in a few months I was shipped out to this dung hole. Tell me, what news you hear about my old 21st?”

  “Sorry,” Robert replies, “but the 21st was consolidated with the 25th Alabama after the Battle of Pittsburg’s Landing or Shiloh as the Yanks now call it. I heard your outfit was down to just a skeleton force before it merged with the 25th. Not many of your original bunch are left I’m afraid.”

  “Ah, it don’t matter, I weren’t with them that long anyways. I jined up in January of ’62 and Shiloh was fought in early April. I didn’t know many of the men, only my company commander Captain Lawson Street. He was a distant cousin of mine. Him and me are both from Decatur, Alabama. Wheres you from?”

  “I’m not sure,” Robert answered, “Loss of memory from the head injury. I guess Alabama, but that was a long time ago, in another life.

  “Tell us Luther how can a man make some money in here? We are dead broke and if we can’t buy food from the Sutler, we won’t make it. It’s bothersome, just last night we talked to a fellow recently captured, he said a while back he was in Richmond and corn was selling at fifty dollars a bushel, flour was four hundred dollars a barrel, pork was five dollars a pound, beef three dollars a pound, potatoes fifty dollars a bushel. At these prices how we ever going to afford to buy anything here, even if we had a little money?”

  “Yeah... right! You have to have money or you will die in here, but don’t worry about them figures you hear’d about, thems in ‘federate money. Here you get paid in Yankee money, that beef in here is around thirty cents a pound, and a bushel of them taters wouldn’t be morn a couple of dollars or so. You can get a pound of sugar fer fifteen cents and a pound of cheese will only cost you one Federal dime. Yankee money ain’t gone up like our ‘federate money.

  “Wow! I didn’t realize the South’s money is so worthless. I guess our eleven dollars a month won’t amount to much, even if we ever see any of it.”

  “Yes, it’s jest about worthless, but in the meantime, tomorrow at sunup you two be at the front gate. Every morning they pick from two to three hundred workers to go work on fortifications, unload the stuff at the dock, things like that. Sergeant I know you are still ailing from yer injuries, but stand back once you get on the job – let the others do most of the work. You each will make half a dime a day – once you have enough you can trade the cash money for hard tack and tobacco. With hard tack and tobacco you can buy anything in this place. Speaking of the front gate, did you notice that ditch, about ten feet out from the wall?”

  “Yeah, what’s that for?”

  “It’s the ‘deadline’. Ever since them blacks have been pulling guard duty, they shoot anybody inside that line. Fellers, I mean anybody, sometimes they’ll shoot one of us jest ‘cause we gets close to that ditch. You’uns keep yer distance, yer hear me?”

  “Thanks Luther, loud and clear, but tomorrow morning, how do we know we will be chosen?”

  “Don’t worry about that, one priso
ner makes the selection. He’s from the 31st too – I can fix it with him.”

  “Why? Why would you do this for us?”

  “Us Alabama boys got to stick together – oh well, Georgia is close enuf to count I suppose, ‘member, don’t be late, be there at sunup.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  CAPTURED

  Through August and part of September of ’63 General Morgan along with Luke Scarburg, now Captain Luke Scarburg captured and paroled hundreds of Union soldiers. In late September 1863 at Versailles, Indiana, some of General John Hunt Morgan’s soldiers raided nearby militia camps and looted county and city treasuries. The symbolic jewels of the local Masonic Lodge were also stolen. When Morgan learned of the theft, he recovered the Lodge’s jewels and returned them to the Lodge the following day. Luke’s father and grandfather were Master Masons. It was at Luke’s request that General Morgan pursued the looters, found and returned the symbols of the local Masonic Lodge known as the jewels. All his life his father had constantly impressed the importance of the Masonic Lodge. He especially emphasized the value of Lodge Number One at Scarlettsville, South Carolina. Why was Lodge Number One so important? Luke himself had been raised to Master Mason in Albertville, but he could not see how Albertville Lodge 663 could have been much different than the Number One at Scarlettsville. All Lodges are constructed and furnished within and without exactly the same. Something is different about Lodge Number One, but what?

  Morgan and his men now known as ‘Morgan’s Marauders’ were almost disbanded in October 1863 at Balley Island, Ohio. There more than 700 of his men were captured while trying to cross the Ohio River into West Virginia. Union gunboats intercepted the Marauders, less than 400 of his men succeeded in crossing. Most of Morgan's men were captured that day and spent the rest of the war in the infamous Camp Douglas Prisoner of War camp in Chicago, Illinois. A week later near a small crossroads in Ohio Morgan’s exhausted, hungry and saddle-sore remainders of his soldiers was finally forced to surrender, including Luke.