Spake As a Dragon (16 page)

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 48
^th
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 48
^th
Alabama?”

Robert introduces himself and Ben. He
explains he is the one from Hood’s Division, 48
^th
Alabama and Ben was with the McLaw’s Division, 10
^th
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 21
^st
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 21
^st
?”

“
Sorry,” Robert replies,
“but the 21
^st
was consolidated with the 25
^th
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 25
^th
. 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 prisoner makes the selection. He’s from the 31
^st
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.

In late October, Morgan, Luke and six
other officers, escaped from their cells in the Ohio Penitentiary
at Columbus by digging a tunnel from Luke’s cell into the
courtyard. They climbed over the wall with a rope made from
mattress covers and escaped without being seen.

Before leaving Columbus, General
Morgan called Luke and his other officers together.

“
Gentlemen,” said the
General, “We have come a long way since our days in Maryland. It
has been a privilege serving with you all, but I believe it best if
we split up now, and each try to reach the land of Dixie on their
own. Together we are too big a target separately I believe some of
us might just make it.

Luke was the only one to speak,
“General, you know we have always followed your orders, and I for
one, will follow them now. It too has been a privilege serving with
you Sir.” Luke stepped back, removed the glove from his right hand
and rendered the snappiest salute he had ever given while serving
in the Confederate Army. The other men came to attention and also
saluted.

“
Thank you! Thank you all
and may God be with you,” said General Morgan returning their
salute.

Luke said his good-byes to the other
men, turned and began his long trip home.

Sometime during the night, he jumped a
Yankee supply train out of Columbus heading south. He arrived close
to Cincinnati the next morning. A couple of miles from the station
in Cincinnati Luke jumped from the train. He talked a Southern
sympathizer into a skiff ride across the Ohio River.

THE LONG TRIP
HOME

His plan was to continue south to
Louisville, Kentucky, then somehow work his way down to Nashville,
Tennessee. From Nashville, it was just a little over one hundred
miles to Huntsville, Alabama.

He thought, ‘
one hundred miles to
Louisville, about one hundred seventy-five to Nashville and another
hundred miles and I will be in Huntsville. Three hundred
seventy-five miles, it might as well be a million
!’ Enemy
forces now occupied most of the territory from Cincinnati to
Huntsville. He probably wouldn’t see a friendly face until he
crossed the line separating Alabama from Tennessee.

He knew the area from Cincinnati to
Louisville was crawling with Yankees. He had no clothes but the
rags on his back. He had no weapon with which to fight if the need
arose. He had no food, except for a few pieces of hardtack he had
managed to keep. About all he had was the desire to escape and to
once again see his mother, brothers and sisters at home in
Alabama.

He felt happy thinking how he might
once again see all their wonderful faces, but then he thought of
Matthew and his father. What will he tell his family? Why, they
will ask, didn’t you save them? Sadly, he thought how he could make
them understand war...and its consequences. How, during the heat of
battle, a soldier must follow orders – his duty comes first, family
and friends are second. Will his family understand?

The farther he walks along the
southern bank of the Ohio River the more he dreads going home. He
can see the sadness and tears in his mother’s eyes even now. At
that moment, he hears a gunboat out in the river discharge its
cannon. Was it Yankee or Rebel? He couldn’t tell, in fact, he
didn’t care, but it brought him back to the current reality – he
must find his way home.

He stops at the edge of the water and
looks out across the muddy water of the Ohio River. The Ohio
meanders south to Louisville before it continues on to join the
mighty Mississippi at Cairo, Illinois.
But wait
, he thinks,
the Ohio will meet up with the Tennessee River at Paducah,
Kentucky. The Tennessee flows directly by Guntersville,
Alabama.

Out of the blue Luke comes up with a
plan. If he can somehow manage to float down the Ohio to Paducah,
maybe he can figure a way to go upstream on the Tennessee River to
Guntersville. He knew this route would be farther by a couple
hundred miles, but it might be safer.

‘
Wait just a minute,
wait just a dadgum minute,’
he thinks. ‘
Take the river to
Louisville, and then head south on foot to Nashville. From
Louisville to Nashville the route will all be through the hills of
Kentucky. Those hills will be a good place to hide if I see any
Yankees. By gosh, this is a plan, and a fine one if I say so
myself.’

THE RAFT

A mile or two down the river Luke
rounds a bend and to his surprise he finds a raft. Someone surely
must have used it recently.

Luke checks up and down the riverbank,
he sees no one; however, upon closer examination he finds a few
barefoot footprints imbedded in the soft sand leading from the raft
into the thick foliage alongside the river. They do not appear to
be recent. He guesses, they are a couple of days old.

“
Hello,” he says in a loud
whisper, “Is anyone there?” He quietly asks again looking toward
the underbrush. “Hello,” he yells holding his hands against the
side of his mouth to amplify his voice. Receiving no response he
decides whoever used the raft must have abandoned it and fled into
the woods.

Luke is about to push the raft from
its resting spot into the river. He has one foot on the raft and
one on the ground and is about to give it a shove. “Git offa my
raft, you thief – or I’s gonna put a bullet atwixt your shoulder
blades.”

Luke recognizes that voice! Turning he
sees his old black pal Nathaniel standing in the woods holding an
Army musket. “Nate, Nate don’t shoot, it’s me Luke, Luke
Scarburg!”

Nate lowers the rifle and steps from
the woods. “It is you, ain’t it Luke? I’ll be ‘swanny’, jest thanks
about we both meets up here on this riverbank. ‘Swanny’, I’d never
have believed I’d seed you again after leaving you at that
discharge tent back yonder in Mary Land. I figured you’d done be
home about now.”

“
No, Nate it didn’t quite
work out for me – what’s your excuse? What are you doing
here?”

Turning away from Luke’s gaze, he
answers, “I got me a letter right after you left...
it...it...”

“
What Nate? Who was the
letter from?”

“
It was from yer uncle,
Isaac.”

“
You mean Uncle Isaac
Scarburg that lived on Scarlett Plantation when we left South
Carolina to go to Alabama?”