The Gunboat's reply to the Home Guards.

CASTLEMON'S WAR SERIES.

Rodney, the Overseer

BY
HARRY CASTLEMON,
AUTHOR OF "GUNBOAT SERIES," "ROCKY MOUNTAIN SERIES,"
"FOREST AND STREAM SERIES," ETC., ETC.

Four Illustrations by Geo. G. White.

PHILADELPHIA:
PORTER & COATES.

Copyright, 1892,
BY
PORTER & COATES.

CONTENTS.

RODNEY, THE OVERSEER.

CHAPTER I.
A DISGUSTED HOME GUARD.

"I don't say that you fellows played the part of cowards by firing into that unarmed boat, but you acted like born idiots, and it would serve you just right if the citizens of Baton Rouge should come out here in a body and lynch the last one of you. Why do you not wait for orders from me instead of roaming about the country acting on your own responsibility? I know what the Confederacy expects this company to do and you don't."

"Now jest listen at you, Tom Randolph."

"Yes, listen when your commanding officer speaks, and remember that there is a handle to my name and that I expect you to use it as often as you address me."

"Well, Cap'n Randolph, if that suits you any better; though it's mighty little you ever done to deserve the title. When this company of ourn was first got up didn't you say that we was going to make all the Union men about here hunt their holes?"

"Yes, I did; and I would have done it in a soldier-like manner if you had obeyed my orders, as you promised to do when you were sworn into the service. But when you made up your minds that you knew more than your captain and set out to have your own way, you got yourselves into hot water directly, and I am very glad of it. If you have come to your senses and will promise that from this time on you will obey my orders to the letter, and quit going off on raids unless I send you, I will do the best I can for you; but the minute you take the bits in your teeth, as you have been doing for the last few months, that minute I will throw you over and the conscript officer can take you and welcome. And mark my words, this is the last warning I shall give you. The last one of you ought to be court-martialled and shot."

It was a motley group of men and boys, perhaps a score of them in all, who were gathered at the foot of the wide steps that led up to the front door of Mr. Randolph's plantation house, and one could have told at a glance that they were as excited and angry as was the young officer in Confederate uniform on the gallery above, who shook his fists at them over the railing, and addressed them in the imperious language we have just recorded. The most of the group were dressed like soldiers, and that was what they claimed to be; but whether they belonged to the Union or Confederate army it would have been hard to tell, for their clothing was an odd mixture of the uniforms of both. It would have been quite as hard to tell whether they belonged to the artillery, infantry, or cavalry, for the distinguishing colors of these three branches of the service were about equally represented. These men and boys called themselves Home Guards; and they were members of the independent company that Tom Randolph and his father raised and equipped after Tom failed to get himself elected second lieutenant of Captain Hubbard's Rangers. You remember something about that, do you not?

When the war excitement was at its height in the spring of 1861, and Rodney Gray, Marcy Gray's cousin, left the military academy at Barrington because he could not study while others were going into the Southern army and making ready to fight for the cause in which they honestly believed, he was bound by a compact he had made with some other red-hot rebels in his class to enlist within twenty-four hours after he reached home provided he could get to a recruiting office in that time. The uniform he wore at school was gray, and so was the one adopted by those who were determined to break up the government because they could no longer do as they pleased with it; and impulsive Rodney Gray, carried away by the excitement of the hour, declared that he would not wear any other color until the South had gained her independence. He found it easy to keep the first part of his promise, for it so happened that he came home in time to join an independent company of cavalry that was being raised in his immediate neighborhood, and which was intended to be so very select that no applicant could get into the company if a single member of it objected to him.

Among the prominent citizens of Mooreville who took a deep interest in the organization (they all claimed Mooreville as their home, although some of them lived from three to a dozen miles outside of it), and used both money and influence to help it along, was Mr. Randolph, Tom's father. If any young fellow who stood well in the community hesitated to send in his name because he could not raise money enough to buy a horse and fit himself out as well as the other Rangers were fitted out, Mr. Randolph was prompt to come to his aid with the assurance that if he would go ahead and enlist, money need not stand in his way, for the horse, uniform, weapons, and all other necessary things would be forthcoming. He scoured the country for miles around for recruits, and did so much in other ways to aid the company that when the Rangers made their first camp, and hoisted above it the flag under which they hoped to ride to victory, they named it Camp Randolph.

This gentleman was so rabid a Secessionist that he was utterly unreasonable. In fact, some of his warmest friends declared that he was about half crazy. He had no clearer conception of the sufferings and trials that he and those who believed as he did were bringing upon the people of the South than the most ignorant negro on his plantations. The men of the North belonged to an inferior race and did not know how to fight. They were going to be whipped without any trouble at all, and when the Southern troops had covered themselves with glory by taking and holding Washington, while Jefferson Davis dictated terms of peace to the Lincoln hirelings, he wanted all the Mooreville boys there to witness the grand and imposing spectacle, and that was why he urged them to enlist. That was about what Mr. Randolph said, and no doubt he was honest with himself as well as with the recruits he brought into Captain Hubbard's company; but events proved that he had another object in view and one that he did not think it best to speak of.

Tom Randolph, who was twenty-four years of age, was as conceited an ignoramus as there was in that part of Louisiana; but he had an idea that he was very bright, and capable of filling any office he could get. At first he declared his intention of going to the front as captain of the Rangers. It would be no more than right that he should have the highest place in return for what his father had done for the company; but when Mr. Randolph told him that that would be aiming a little too high, that Bob Hubbard, who had really done more hard work for the company than anybody else, would certainly be chosen captain, and that it would look better and be better if Tom would accept something a little lower down and work his way up, the young man decided that he would be a candidate for the second lieutenant's place. He was sure he would get it and so was his father; but he didn't. Although the Rangers did not know anything about soldiering, they did know what sort of men they wanted for officers, and Tom received but twelve votes out of sixty-five—his own and those of the eleven recruits his father had brought into the company. Then there was trouble in the camp, and if Tom and his father had possessed the physical power they would have thrashed every Ranger in it. But there was one thing about it: if they could not have a voice in the management of the company they would not only cease to support it, but would do their best to break it up; and Tom acted upon this rule or ruin policy by withdrawing from the ranks almost as soon as the result of the ballot was announced, his example being followed by the eleven recruits who had voted for him.

"Now let's see how they will get on with their Partisan Rangers," Tom said to his father that night. "There's almost too much social equality in that company anyway to suit me. I have noticed it ever since I have been in it. Who is their second lieutenant, the man they shoved into my place? A common book-keeper who never in his life had the price of a pickaninny in his pocket."

Tom hoped and believed that by withdrawing from the company he had inflicted a blow upon it from which it would never recover; but to his surprise and disgust the Rangers went ahead with their plans as if nothing had happened. Rodney Gray, the only member of the organization who knew anything about military matters, was made first duty sergeant and drill-master; and under his skillful management the Rangers changed so rapidly from awkward greenhorns to soldiers, and became so proficient in the school of the company, that the deserters, with the single exception of Tom Randolph himself, began to repent their hasty action, and ask one another what they could do to induce the Rangers to take them back again. They knew they could not look to Mr. Randolph for an outfit, for he took Tom's defeat as a deliberate insult to his family, and instead of promoting enlistments in the company was doing all he could to stop them. The only one they could turn to for help was Rodney Gray's father—a man who had said and done nothing of consequence to show that he was in favor of partisan organizations, and who was looked upon with suspicion by his neighbors because he put no faith in the final success of the secession movement, and did not hesitate to say that the South would be whipped as she deserved to be for trying to break up the government. There were thousands of wealthy and influential men in Louisiana who believed as he did; and yet they did more to help the soldiers than the blatant rebels who were fierce for a fight at the beginning, but went over to the Federals at the first opportunity, and became "spies and informers for the sake of the loaves and fishes that fell into their hands." The sequel proved that the recruits went to the right man, for six of the eleven were fitted out at Mr. Gray's expense. And he did not boast of it either, as Mr. Randolph and Tom had done.

Captain Hubbard's Rangers, as the company was always called, got on very well until they began looking around for someone to swear them into the service and order them to the front, and then the trouble began. They first applied to the commanding officer at New Orleans; but he declined to have anything to do with them unless they would give up their independent organization, and that was something the Rangers were determined they would not do to please anybody. They formed their company in the first place because they were led to believe that the Richmond government was in full sympathy with such organizations, which would be allowed full liberty of action when sworn into the service of the State; but such would by no means be the case if they permitted themselves to be sworn into the service of the Confederacy. As one of the Rangers expressed it: "If they were going to give their liberty up to a new government they might as well have stayed under the old."

Tom Randolph was delighted when he heard of this state of affairs, and the Rangers themselves were much depressed; but Rodney Gray was sure he saw a way out of the difficulty when he received a letter from his old schoolmate and chum, Dick Graham, who lived in Missouri. In that letter Dick said he belonged to an organization of partisans who were known as State Guards. Their immediate commander was General Price, but they were required to take oath to obey Governor Jackson and nobody else. In plain English this meant that while the State Guards were willing to look out for the secession movement in Missouri and keep all Yankee invaders off her soil, they did not intend to go into any other State unless they felt like it, or permit the Richmond authorities to control their movements in any way. That was exactly the kind of partisans that Captain Hubbard and his men wanted to be; and when Rodney Gray said that if the Governor of their own State would not accept them as a company, they had a perfect right to offer themselves to the Governor of another, and that it might be a good plan to ask General Price if he would take the Rangers just as they were, Captain Hubbard was glad to act upon the suggestion. So, without delay, a telegram was sent to Dick Graham's father in St. Louis, and in due time the answer came back:

Price will accept. Company officers and independent organization to remain the same.

To quote from Rodney, this brought the matter squarely home to the Rangers, who were compelled to decide upon some course of action without loss of time. A business meeting of the company (and a stormy one it turned out to be) was held that very day; and although Captain Hubbard and Rodney carried their point, it was only by a small majority of votes that the Rangers consented to leave their own State and go into the service of another.

Believing it to be a good plan to strike while the iron was hot, Captain Hubbard and one of his officers at once set out for New Orleans to find a boat that would take the company to Little Rock; but in the meantime the Governor of Louisiana got wind of the affair through spies in the telegraph office in Mooreville, and tried to upset the designs of the Rangers by having them sworn in by General Lacey, who was a Confederate officer. He would have succeeded too had it not been for quick-witted Rodney Gray, who cautioned his comrades not to answer to their names when the roll was called. He did more. When his own name was called he rode to the front and centre and surprised and angered the general, a veteran of the Mexican War, who had never learned to recognize any organizations outside of those mentioned in the Army Regulations, by stating that the company was an independent one whose members, while willing and eager to be sworn into the service of their State, did not desire to enter the service of the Confederate States. They enlisted as partisans, and partisans they wished to remain. Upon hearing this the veteran was astounded. He declared, by the shade of the great and good Washington, that he did not know what the country was coming to, flung the roll-book on the ground at the feet of Rodney's horse, and rode away in a huff; and that was the last of Captain Hubbard's Rangers. They broke ranks then and there and never held a company meeting afterward.

The next morning Rodney Gray, who was determined to be a partisan and nothing else, started for Missouri with no companion but his horse, and eventually succeeded in finding his friend Graham in spite of all the efforts that were made, both by Union men and rebels, to stop him. Of course Tom Randolph was happy over the way things had turned out, and one would think he ought to have been satisfied; but he was not. Every one of the Rangers who voted against him when he ran for second lieutenant made an enemy of Tom, and he showed it as often as the opportunity was presented. He felt particularly spiteful toward Rodney Gray, whose services as drill-master had been publicly acknowledged by the gift of an elegant sword from the company, and he began persecuting him the moment he learned that Rodney had decided to leave the State and go to Missouri. With the aid of a friend of his, Drummond by name, who had charge of the telegraph office in Mooreville, he paved the way for Rodney's arrest in St. Louis by sending a description of him and his horse to Mr. Randolph's agent, a Yankee cotton factor, who lived in that city; but this scheme, which might have brought Rodney's soldiering to an end before it was fairly begun, was frustrated by a "student" in Drummond's office whose name was Griffin, and who went all the way to Baton Rouge by night to warn Rodney of the plots that had been laid against him. Acting on his friendly hints Rodney did not go to St. Louis as he had intended, but left the boat at Cedar Bluff Landing in Missouri; and from there, after some exciting experiences with a squad of emergency men who happened to come in with a prisoner during the night, he set off across the country to find General Price and Dick Graham.

He had undertaken something from which the boldest man might have shrunk without any fear of being accused of timidity; but he came through with flying colors as we have said, did a soldier's duty side by side with his friend Dick for fifteen dreary months, was discharged with him at Tupelo after the evacuation of Corinth, and brought Dick home with him to his father's house at Mooreville, where they were both resting at the time this story begins. Even after they were discharged, and had begun telling each other that their troubles and trials as soldiers were all over, they met with an adventure that under almost any other circumstances might have proved a serious thing for them. Shortly after they left Camp Pinckney on their way home, they ran into a squad of Union troopers, who covered them with their carbines and told them to come in out of the rain. They were prisoners for the first time, but did not remain so any longer than it took their captors to read their discharges. The boys' hearts overflowed with gratitude when the good-natured corporal who commanded the squad jerked his thumb over his shoulder and told them to "git," and Rodney hinted that the time might come when they could repay his kindness. Strange as it may appear the time did come, and perhaps we shall see if Rodney remembered and kept his promise.

Rodney Gray was the only one of Captain Hubbard's Rangers who became a partisan. The Governor's attempt to have them sworn into the Confederate service against their will broke them up completely, and so disgusted some of their number that they declared they never wanted to see a man with a star on his collar again; but they could not remain at home while all their friends were making haste to go to the front for fear that the fun would all be over and the Yankees whipped before they could get there, and in the end every one of them became what he repeatedly declared he never would be—a Confederate soldier. Then it was that Tom Randolph and his father began to bestir themselves. There was a good deal of pressure brought to bear upon every young man and boy in the South about that time, and those who would not put on a gray jacket or do something else to show their zeal for the cause were coldly treated and sometimes snubbed; but Tom Randolph escaped all this, and even raised himself higher in the estimation of some of the Mooreville people by procuring, through his father's influence, a captain's commission in the State militia, with authority to recruit a company of mounted men who were to act as Home Guards. Tom knew the commission was coming and prepared for it by ordering a fine uniform and horse equipments of the latest and most expensive pattern, not forgetting an officer's sword which on its scabbard bore an inscription to the effect that the weapon was presented by his affectionate relatives, and on the blade the old Spanish legend:

Draw me not without a cause,

Nor sheath me with dishonor.

"That is a good motto, my son," said Mr. Randolph, when Tom drew the weapon and proudly showed it as though his father had never seen it before, "and I trust you will bear it constantly in mind."

"The cause of the South is a righteous cause, for it is the cause of freedom the world over," shouted Captain Randolph, pounding the table with his fist and ignoring the fact that his father held more than four hundred men, women, and children in bondage at that moment. "To cease fighting for that cause at the bidding of the tyrant Lincoln would be dishonor; and the stain upon our record as a nation would be so deep and black that it never could be wiped out. When once I have drawn this beautiful sword in defence of the rights of my country, it shall never be sheathed until every Yankee south of Mason and Dixon's line has been driven back where he belongs."

The eloquent soldier pounded the table with his fist; everyone in the room, negro servants and all, applauded; and one of the latter ventured to say, in tones that of course were not intended to reach the officer's ears: "Say, you niggahs! What'll you bet dem Yankees don't run fit to kill derselves when dey see Mass' Tom comin'?" As to Tom, he smiled complacently and said to himself: "That was a better speech than Rodney Gray delivered when those Rangers gave him that frog-sticker of his."

Knowing Rodney Gray and Dick Graham as well as you ought to know them by this time, what do you think they would have thought if they had been in that room and listened to Tom's words? Before twenty minutes had passed away he appeared upon the streets of Mooreville in the full glory of his captain's suit and with his horse duly caparisoned; but having no company to command he prudently left his sword at home.

It was Tom's wish and his father's to bring the strength of the company up to a hundred men; but Tom found it harder work to raise a small fraction of that number than it was to get his commission from the Governor. Everyone who presented himself was accepted, and that too without reference to his social standing or his ability to pass the surgeon; and when all other expedients to promote enlistments had been tried, Mr. Randolph came to the front, as he had done in the case of the Rangers, with the offer to arm and equip all recruits who could not furnish their own outfit. This helped matters along amazingly; and when fifty men had been enrolled Captain Randolph ordered them to appear in one of his father's fields on a certain afternoon, armed and equipped as the law directed, for "company inspection." No one knew just what the order meant, but the men were all in the field at the appointed time; and when Tom came to look at them as they sat in their saddles facing him, after making an awkward and ineffectual effort to fall in line, he was disgusted with them and with himself too. Until that moment he had no idea that he had been enrolling so unpromising a body of men. Men! They looked more like lazy vagabonds, as indeed the most of them were. Rodney Gray himself could not have made soldiers of them. The next half hour was an ordeal that Captain Tom never wanted to pass through again; but we will let him describe it in his own way.

"They were the worst looking fellows I think I ever saw," Tom told his father and mother when he reached home after the "inspection" was over. "I brought them together because I wanted to see how they looked, and how I would look riding at their head; and to tell the honest truth, if a stranger had come into that field when they first tried to draw themselves up in line I believe I should have put spurs to my horse and galloped away rather than be seen in their company."

"Why, what was the matter with them?" inquired his mother, who took as deep an interest in the organization as Tom himself, and was anxious that it should win a name for him after the rebuff he had received at the hands of Captain Hubbard's Rangers. "You knew they were not gentlemen when you asked them to give in their names. There are few of that sort left in the country, more's the pity."

"I know that; but I hoped they might have pride enough to make a half-way respectable appearance at inspection," answered Captain Tom. "In the first place, no two of them were mounted, armed, or dressed alike. In the next, they came just as they had been at work in the field in the forenoon, and I don't believe that half of them had taken the trouble to wash their faces or comb their hair."

"They looked just as we see them on the streets every day, I suppose," said Mr. Randolph.

"Just the same, only worse," replied Tom, who was almost mad enough to cry every time he thought of it. "Here was a man mounted on the heaviest kind of a plough horse and carrying a long squirrel rifle on his shoulder, and beside him was one on a little runt of a mule and armed with a heavy double-barrel deer-killer. Not a few of them had chicken or turkey feathers stuck in their slouch hats for plumes, and some had pipes in their mouths; and when I said that no smoking would be allowed in the ranks, they did not hesitate to tell me that I need not think I could boss them around as Rodney Gray had bossed the Rangers while he was acting as their drill-master, for that was something they would not submit to."

"Why the—the impudence!" exclaimed Mrs. Randolph; while her husband looked down at the floor and told himself that that was about what might have been expected of such men as he and Tom had been able to bring into the Home Guards.

"That's the kind of soldiers they are," continued Captain Tom. "They know I haven't the power to enforce my commands, and so they intend to do pretty near as they please. The only reason they joined was because they wanted an excuse for keeping out of the army, and get the horses and weapons that were promised them."

"And food," added Mrs. Randolph.

"Food!" exclaimed her husband. "I didn't promise them any food except in case they were ordered to some other part of the State, and then I said I would look out for the families of those who were too poor to make provision for them."

"Well, a rough looking fellow who said he was a member of the company came to the kitchen yesterday and asked for some bacon on the strength of that promise, and I gave it to him," said Mrs. Randolph.

"I'll bet he played a game on you," said Captain Tom.

"That's a pretty state of affairs!" exclaimed the father, profoundly astonished. "Don't give another mouthful to him or anybody else on the strength of promises I made to that company. As long as they stay about here they will earn their own food or go hungry."

"That's the kind of soldiers they are," repeated Tom. "They enlisted because they are afraid to go into the army and too lazy to work, and not because they care a picayune for the Confederacy. And after I had brought them in line as well as I could, and told one man to take his pants out of his boots and be sure that those boots were blacked the next time he came out to inspection, and ordered another to put his hat on straight and quit carrying his gun flat on his shoulder as he would if he were hog hunting in the woods, they made up their minds that they would elect officers. When I told them that I hadn't brought them together for any such purpose, and that we would postpone the matter until the company had been brought up to its full strength, they didn't pay the least attention to me."

"It's a rabble—a mob and nothing else," cried Mrs. Randolph, who looked as angry as her son felt. "It is the one wish of my heart to see you take a proud position among the noble defenders of your country, but you will never have anything more to do with those ruffians with my consent. Whom did they choose for officers?"

Tom mentioned the names of two of the meanest men in the country for miles around, and his angry mother continued:

"A common overseer and an acknowledged chicken and hog thief! My son, you must not appear again in the company of those men."

"I don't intend to," replied Tom, jumping to his feet and striding up and down the room. "Although I despise every man in Captain Hubbard's company, and have ever since they defeated me for the second lieutenancy, I must acknowledge that they were a fine looking body of men, and I somehow got it into my head that my Home Guards would look and act just like them; but they don't, and I am so disappointed that I don't see how I can ever get over it. I'll hold fast to my commission and rank, but I'll have nothing more to do with that company of Home Guards."

Slowly and sadly Captain Tom ascended to his room, where he took off his fine uniform and arrayed himself in the citizen's suit he had vowed never to put on again until he had helped the South gain her independence. Then he put his handsome sword into its cloth case, stood it up in the darkest corner of his closet, and closed the door. He felt like a monarch who had lost his crown.

CHAPTER II.
CAPTAIN TOM SMELLS POWDER.

For a long time Captain Randolph remained firm in his resolution to have nothing more to do with the Home Guards. Although he did not formally throw up his command of the company he kept away from it as much as he could, and never ordered it to appear for drills and inspections; but by so doing he did not by any means escape being taken to task for the lawless acts of which his men were guilty. The company well deserved the name that Mrs. Randolph had applied to it, and one could not reasonably expect that they would conduct themselves as the high-toned Mooreville Rangers would have done under the same circumstances. It had never occurred to them to inquire what their duties would be when they were sworn into the service of the State, and it is extremely doubtful if their captain could have enlightened them on that point; but in their ignorance they took it for granted that they had been given liberty to do as they pleased, and acting under the leadership of their lieutenants, Lambert, the overseer, and Moseley, the chicken and hog thief, they very soon made themselves known to and feared and hated by the citizens for miles around. Tom heard of their exploits now and then, and although he stamped his feet and shook his clenched hands in the air, he did nothing to show his authority. At last things came to such a pass that Captain Tom, to quote from Rodney's friend Griffin, who was closely watching the movements of the Home Guards, "had to fish or cut bait."

Bright and early one morning a couple of angry planters galloped furiously into Mr. Randolph's front yard, threw themselves from their horses, leaving the animals to tramp down the flower beds or stand still as they pleased, entered the house without knocking, and made their way through the hall into the dining room, where the family sat at breakfast. Without giving anybody time to express surprise at their abrupt entrance or to inquire into the nature of their business, they stalked around the table to the chair in which Tom was sitting and shook their fists in his face pretty close to his nose.

"Look-a-here, young feller," said the one whose rage would permit him to speak first, "what do you mean by sending them vagabonds of yourn, them Home Guards, into gentlemen's houses to turn things up topsy-turvy?"

The men looked so dangerous that Captain Tom turned white with alarm, but could not utter a word. He understood the charge and knew he was innocent, but he could not say so.

"When that company of yourn was first got together you took pains to spread it around that you were going to use them to clean out the Union men," the planter almost shouted. "That was all right and I didn't have a word to say against it, for I thought they oughter be driven out; but why don't you confine yourselves to searching the houses of Union men, and let good and loyal Confederates like me and my neighbor alone? We are as strong for the South and as ready to fight for her as you are; and I tell you once for all——"

By this time Tom's father and mother had recovered themselves in some measure, but Tom himself was still so frightened that he could not speak. The former arose and placed chairs for the visitors, and Mrs. Randolph told the girl to lay plates for them, adding that if they would sit down and tell their story while drinking a cup of coffee, she was sure her son could clear himself of the serious accusations they had brought against him. If their houses had been raided by the Home Guards they might rest assured that a Randolph was in no way to blame for it. This calmed the storm and made the visitors look as though they felt a little ashamed of themselves; but they sat down and told their story.

"It seems that that man Lambert, who always was too lazy and trifling to earn an honest living, has give up his situation as overseer on Miss Randall's place, and took to raiding through the country on his own hook," said the planter who had thus far done all the talking. "We have heard of him a time or two, but so long as he stole from Union men and pestered them it was all right; but last night he jumped down on me and Boswell, and that is a little more than we can stand."

"I don't see what made him do that," exclaimed Tom, who had by this time found his tongue. "He knows you are good Confederates."

"Of course he knows it, and when we reminded him of it he didn't try to deny it; but he allowed we had guns in the house, and that them dangerous things couldn't be permitted to stay in the country except in the hands of soldiers. So he came to our houses and searched them; and as he had about a dozen men in his gang we couldn't help ourselves."

"As sure as I live I never gave him orders to search anybody's premises," declared Tom.

"I don't reckon you ever gave him much orders of any sort," replied the planter, with a look on his face which showed that he knew about how much authority Tom had over the Home Guards.

"And bear this in mind," added his companion: "when we found that we couldn't say or do anything to stop them, and that they were dead set on having the guns, we offered to bring 'em out ruther than have them dirty vagabonds rummaging over our things; but that didn't by no means suit Lambert. Him and his men must go in themselves so as to be sure of getting everything in the shape of weapons there was. And when they got into my house where do you suppose was the first place they went to?" added Boswell, with suppressed fury.

"I have not the slightest idea," replied Mrs. Randolph, when the man stopped and looked around as if he expected an answer.

"To the bed," said Tom, who had heard that it was a good plan for raiders to look between mattresses for things they wanted to find.

"No, they didn't. They went straight to my wife's bureau," said Boswell fiercely. "That was a pretty place to look for guns, wasn't it, now?"

Tom was thunderstruck. He knew that the Home Guards had been denounced as robbers because they had ransacked the dwellings and smoke-houses of Union men, and had thought nothing of it, for Union men had no rights, and were not in the least deserving of sympathy; but this was a different matter altogether. It would never do to let such a story as that get to the ears of the Governor.

"Perhaps they looked into the bureau for revolvers," he managed to say at length.

"No, they didn't. They looked for rings and breastpins and bracelets and the like; but they didn't find none, for my wife was sharp enough to put the whole business into her pocket as soon as she see that they were set on coming into the house. All the same, they got a rifle that cost me $125 in gold in New Orleans in good times, and a shot gun that is worth almost twice as much. And I'll tell you what's a fact, Tom Randolph: I want them guns back. They're mine, and if I don't get 'em I'll raise a fuss."

"And while you are getting them you might as well tell Lambert to hand over the two guns he stole from me," said the other visitor, "and that if he ever pokes his long nose inside my door again I'll send the contents of one of 'em into it. I say nothing about the hams they took from my smoke house, but they mustn't try to take any more. I reckon me and Boswell were a little too fast in accusing you of sending Lambert to search our houses, but you being the captain, you know, why—really you had oughter make them fellers go a little slower. What do you think of the situation anyhow, Mr. Randolph? And how long will it be before we shall have Washington?"

Mr. Randolph and his wife were glad to have the conversation turned into another channel, and so was Captain Tom, who did not want to hear any more about Lieutenant Lambert and his exploits. He was ill at ease as long as the visitors remained; but they went away as soon as they had drunk their coffee, and seemed as glad to go as the Randolphs were to have them.

Tom did not eat a hearty breakfast that morning, for the fear that the Governor might get wind of Lambert's latest raid and revoke his commission, added to the difficulties he saw in his way of complying with the demands his late visitors had made upon him, took away his appetite. He must restore those guns to their owners—there were no two ways about that; but how should he go to work to get them? His first thought was to present himself before Lambert in full uniform and, by virtue of the authority conferred upon him by his captain's commission, which stated in plain language that he was to be obeyed by all persons under him, demand the return of the stolen property forthwith. That was the way any other captain would have gone about it, Tom thought; but he was afraid that bluster might not prove successful in his case. He had reason to fear (and it was one of the heaviest trials he was called upon to bear) that he did not stand as high in the estimation of some of his men as he did in his mother's; that he had on one or two occasions been compared to a wagon's fifth wheel in point of usefulness, and it would be just like the insubordinate Lambert to refuse point blank to obey his orders. That would be unfortunate, for it would show to the world, and perhaps to the Governor, that Tom was not the real captain of the Home Guards. After looking at the matter from all sides he made up his mind that conciliation would be his best policy, and when he rode away to seek an interview with his lieutenant he wore citizen's clothes and left his sword behind. He found Lambert at his quarters on the Randall plantation, where he continued to live, although he had turned the work over to the field hands and seldom took the trouble to see how it was going on, and he was just getting ready to mount the horse that had been brought to his door.

"Hallo, lieutenant!" began Tom, with more familiarity and good-fellowship than he had ever before exhibited in addressing the man.

"Morning, cap'n," replied the overseer, who might have responded to the salutation in a very different way if Tom had not been respectful enough to put a handle to his name. "Want to see me?"

"I came over on purpose to have a friendly talk with you," said Tom. "Look here, old fellow; you will play smash if you don't stop raiding the premises of such men as Boswell and Wallace. What induced you to do it?"

"Aint I got a right to look for we'pons?" demanded Lambert.

"You have authority from me," answered Tom, with some emphasis on the two last words, "to search the houses of Union men, but you have no right to enter the dwellings of Confederates."

"Look-a-here, cap'n. I knowed that them two men had guns in hiding."

"But you didn't expect to find them in bureau drawers, did you?"

"Eh?" exclaimed the overseer. He looked somewhat abashed for a moment and then continued: "When I search a house I search it. I look into every hole and corner in it."

"That is perfectly right when you search houses belonging to the enemies of your country; but it is all wrong when you enter the houses of our friends. Such work will turn them against us—make enemies of them. I saw Boswell and Wallace this morning and they are mad as hornets. They want their guns back."

"Well, the next time you see 'em just ask if they'll have 'em now or wait till they get 'em. I want them guns myself to keep the Yankees from getting 'em."

"The Yankees!" said Tom contemptuously. "You don't think they will ever get this far South, do you?"

"They mout. Didn't you say yourself that they was liable to come down from Cairo or up from New Orleans, and that we'd oughter have a company of Home Guards here to stop 'em?"

"I said there was a bare possibility that they might do so, and that it would be the part of wisdom to prepare for an emergency," answered Captain Tom, who well remembered that he had used stronger language than that while urging Lambert to send in his name. "But I want those guns and must have them at once. You haven't any commission from the Governor yet, and I——"

When Tom said this he stopped abruptly and gave such a start that his lieutenant looked up at him in surprise.

"What's the matter, cap'n?" said he. "You what?"

"You haven't received your commission from the Governor yet," repeated Tom slowly and emphatically. "And when I——"

"Have I got to have a paper like yourn?" exclaimed Lambert, looking astonished and interested. "That's news to me."

"Yes. And it can come to you only through my recommendation. I must certify that you were legally elected to the office you hold, and that was the reason I did not want you men to go through the farce of holding an election on horseback on the day I ordered you out for inspection," replied Tom; but the truth was he had never thought of it until that moment. It was a bright idea that suddenly flitted through his mind, and he wondered why it had been so long in coming to him.

"Well, by gum!" was all the disgusted Lambert could say in reply.

"Your papers, if you get them, will be something like mine, only different, you know, for a captain outranks a lieutenant by a large majority," continued Tom, improving to the utmost the advantage he had so unexpectedly gained. "You have no authority to make out warrants, but I have; and our non-coms., if we had any, would have to look to me for them."

This was all Greek to the overseer, who had taken no pains to post himself on military matters, but he did not ask Tom to explain, for he was anxious to hear more about the commission he ought to have, but had not yet received.

"Well, go on," said he impatiently. "And when you what?"

"And when I make my first report to the Governor or his adjutant-general, and ask him about your commission and Moseley's, I want to be able to say that you are in every way satisfactory to me as well as to the people hereabouts, and that I am sure you will make brave and obedient officers. But you can see for yourself that I can't say that if you keep on bothering good and loyal Confederates like Wallace and Boswell. I think you had better give me those guns."

"I aint got but one," replied Lambert, who seemed to have lost the independent and swaggering air he had assumed at the beginning of the interview, "and I'll go right in and bring it out."

"Where are the others?" demanded Captain Tom.

"Well, Moseley's got one, Smith's got another, and where t'other one has went I disremember just at this minute."

"You distributed the spoils among you, it seems."

"Yes, kinder; so't the Yankees couldn't easy find them."

"Then you must ride around and gather them up; and as I have nothing particular to do this morning I will go with you. I'd rather be a king among hogs than a hog among kings any day," said Tom to himself, as his lieutenant turned about and went into his house, "but I confess I little thought I should get so low down as to command a lot of brigands. That idea about the commissions makes me the biggest toad in the puddle from this time on. I'll hold them up as prospective rewards for good behavior and prompt obedience of orders; but Lambert and Moseley shall never have commissions on my recommendation, I bet you."

The Home Guards had deliberately stolen these four valuable guns, and Tom Randolph knew it as soon as he found how they had been scattered about. The plea that if permitted to remain in possession of their owners they might be captured by the Yankees, who would use them to kill Confederates, was Lambert's excuse for one of the worst outrages that had ever been perpetrated in that part of Louisiana; but it was by no means the last. Three-fourths of all the Home Guards in the South were like Captain Tom's men, and the worst that can be said of them is that they acted as guards at Andersonville, Libby, Millen, and Salisbury. It was not the Confederate soldiers who served at the front, but the Home Guards, who starved the boys in blue to death in those prison pens, and hunted them with bloodhounds when they escaped.

The upshot of the whole matter was that Tom got the guns, which in due time were restored to their lawful owners, and plumed himself on having firmly established his authority over his men. Well, they did behave a little better during the daytime and in that settlement where they were so well known, but they took to riding around of nights, and making "visits of ceremony" to isolated farmhouses in which they had reason to suppose that they would find something worth stealing. But riding was anything but easy work, and the novelty of frightening women and children and browbeating unarmed men wore off after a while; and when they had secured bacon and meal enough to last them for a few weeks, the Home Guards subsided and were seldom heard of again until the news of the glorious victory at Bull Run raised the war spirit of the Southern people to the old fever heat. Then they came to the surface again, and persecuted Union people in and around Mooreville so fiercely that some of them were compelled to flee for their lives, Captain Randolph being in command this time. From his friend Drummond, the telegraph operator, he secured a list of all suspected persons in the neighborhood, and with this to aid him Tom succeeded in doing effective work for the cause of Southern independence. But it was too much like labor to be kept up for any length of time; there was not very much glory in it anyway the better class of Secessionists in the community became strongly opposed to it, and so the Home Guards dropped out of sight once more, not to appear again until Farragut captured New Orleans and sent some of his vessels up the river to effect a junction with Flag-Officer Davis at Vicksburg. When the people of Mooreville heard of it they were very indignant, and some of them declared that they would never submit to have their country overrun in that way—they would die first; and to show how very much in earnest they were they stopped all work, shut up their houses, and ran about the streets in the greatest excitement. When the ship of war Iroquois came up with Commander Palmer on board and demanded the surrender of Baton Rouge, the mayor of that insignificant little town "indulged in the same mock-heroic nonsense that the mayor and council of New Orleans had been indulging in the week before." He declared that the city would not be surrendered to any power on earth, and that if the Federals took possession of it they would do it without the consent and against the wishes of the peaceable inhabitants.

"It was all done for effect, and that man will be one of the last in the Confederacy to shoulder a musket," said Rodney Gray when he heard of it; but being a soldier he applauded the action of Captain Palmer, who, without any fuss or parade, promptly took possession of the barracks, arsenal, and other property of the United States. He hoisted the flag of the Union over the arsenal too, and told the boastful mayor in pretty plain language that he would let it stay there if he did not want to get himself and his town into trouble.

"All honor to the brave citizens of New Orleans. They have shown me how I ought to act in this emergency," said Captain Randolph on the morning the startling news came that some of the victorious Union fleet had steamed up the river. He posted for his room the moment he heard of it, and when he came down he was dressed in his uniform and wore his glittering sword by his side.

"Now take those things off and don't make a fool of yourself," said Mr. Randolph, who had told his wife over and over again that from the bottom of his heart he wished he had never had anything to do with the Home Guards.

"Don't be rash, my dear," said his mother in tones more befitting the occasion. "What are you going to do?"

"I shall assemble my company and place myself in a strong position between here and Baton Rouge, and stand ready to resist the enemy's advance upon Mooreville," replied Tom. "The Federal General Butler has more than 100,000 men, and can easily spare some of them long enough to make our capital a heap of ashes; but the Governor shall hear that I harassed them while they were doing it, as our own Marion and his bold men used to harass the Redcoats."

Those who were best acquainted with Tom Randolph knew that he would not have gone one step toward Baton Rouge if he had not had the best of reasons for believing that there were no troops at hand to take possession of the city after the war ships had captured it; but although Tom hinted as much to the members of his company whom he tried to rally to the defence of their hearth-stones, he could not induce more than a handful of them to turn out. It did not require very much courage to rob Union men who had previously been deprived of their weapons, but facing blue-jackets who were likely to have loaded muskets in their hands was a more serious matter. The excuses the Home Guards made for refusing to follow their captain were of the flimsiest kind; but, all the same, they wouldn't go, and Tom finally rode away with only a baker's dozen of men at his heels. They arrived within sight of the spires of the city on the same day that Captain Palmer's sailors hoisted the Union flag over the arsenal, and might perhaps have witnessed the ceremony if they had gone a mile or two farther down the road; but Captain Tom could not uncover Mooreville even for the sake of saving the capital of his State. He did not even venture near enough to the Mississippi to see the Iroquois' topmasts; but he went closer to the enemy than the cowards who remained at home, and that was something to be proud of.

Captain Tom slept in a planter's house that night, while his men bunked in the stables and corn cribs and under the trees in the yard, and the next morning made a wide detour to the river above the city with no other object in view than to be able to say, when he went home, that he had been there. If he had known what he was going to see and experience when he reached the river it isn't likely that he would have gone in that direction at all; for he halted his men behind the levee just in time to see a monster war vessel steaming leisurely up the swift, muddy current of the Mississippi. She was the blackest, ugliest looking thing that Tom's eyes had ever rested on, and the queerest sensations came over him as he gazed at her. It was not a cold day, but Tom shivered violently, and tasted something in his mouth that reminded him of salt.

"By gum! There's one of them things now. Let's try a whack at her. What do you say, boys?"

Tom had been on the point of giving the signal for retreat, or trying to give it, but this astounding and reckless proposition staggered him so that he could not open his mouth. The man who made it showed that he was in earnest by swinging himself from his horse and advancing on all fours toward the levee, dragging his rifle along the ground at his side. In less time than it takes to tell it he and all his companions were lying prone behind the levee, using it as a breastwork, and Captain Tom sat in his saddle looking on like one in a dream. When they were all in position one of the Home Guards set up a warwhoop, a straggling fire ran along the top of the levee and bullets and buckshot went whistling toward the vessel. There were several men on her deck and around the wheel-house, and although Tom did not see any of them fall he did see that they were badly frightened, for they ran in all directions, and an instant later there was not one of them to be seen. The Home Guards yelled triumphantly and turned on their backs behind their breastwork to reload their guns. Then Tom managed to find his voice; but it sounded so strangely that he hardly knew whether it belonged to him or not.

"That's the way to make the Yankees hunt their holes," he said, in trembling tones. "Give it to them again! Cut their old tub to pieces, my brave——"

Just then a wide, dark opening appeared in the side of the vessel nearest them, a black object came slowly out, a thundering concussion rent the air, and a thirty-two pound shell came at them. It shrieked fearfully as it flew over the levee above their heads, and made such a horrid din when it exploded in the thick woods behind them, scattering iron and branches about and cutting down twigs and leaves in a perfect shower, that for a single instant the Home Guards were motionless with astonishment and terror. They had not hurt the gunboat at all, but they had made her captain angry, and the fear that he might resent the insult to his flag by firing more shells at them sent the Home Guards to their saddles in hot haste; and with Captain Tom, who rode the swiftest horse, far in the lead, they struck out for home at a better pace than they had ever travelled before. And they never drew rein until they had left the dangerous neighborhood miles behind.

"It was the narrowest escape from an ambuscade I ever had in my life," said Captain Tom to the first man he met when he rode into Mooreville that night, "and if it hadn't been for my promptness in getting out of there I shouldn't have had a man left. We'd have been cut to pieces or captured, the last one of us. We didn't see any enemy except the ship we fired at, but a minute or so after she opened on us a battery of flying artillery, that had all the while been concealed in the timber in our rear, cut loose on us with all its guns, and it's a miracle that one of us escaped to tell the story of the battle."

"But my partner came from Baton Rouge to-day," said the man doubtfully, "and he declares that there are no Yankee troops in the country this side of New Orleans. So where did that battery come from?"

"Don't you believe any such stuff," replied Tom indignantly. "I tell you the woods are full of them, and they are liable to come to Mooreville between now and sunrise."

If no one else believed his story Tom believed it himself, and the consequence was he slept in his chair that night. But for some reason the Yankees did not appear as he had predicted, and they might have postponed their coming indefinitely had it not been for the lawless acts of Captain Tom's own men.

CHAPTER III.
THE CONSCRIPT'S FRIEND.

Tom Randolph would have been very angry indeed if anyone had told him that the noise that thirty-two pound shell made when it exploded in the woods, and led him and his men to believe that there was a Union battery concealed there, had frightened all the war spirit out of him, but it is a fact that after his experience with the gunboat he did not show the least desire to take the field again at the head of his company. Everybody knew that there were no Federal troops in Baton Rouge, but there were war vessels in the Mississippi holding the city under their guns, and their presence had a depressing effect upon a good many red-hot rebels besides Tom Randolph. More than that, General Butler had assumed command at New Orleans; and the energetic and effective way in which he dealt with treason there opened the eyes of the Mooreville people to the fact that there might be a day of settlement coming for them also, and that it would be well if they could have a tolerably clean record to show when the invading army moved up to take possession of Baton Rouge.

This was the way Mr. Randolph and some of his neighbors looked at the situation; and acting upon the hints they dropped in his presence, Tom concealed his uniform and sword in the garret, where he thought no one would be likely to look for them. He was getting tired of war anyway, he said, and wished the past could be blotted out and things be as they were before South Carolina, by her senseless act of secession, brought so much trouble upon him and his friends. He was not as disgusted and angry as a good Confederate ought to have been when he heard a man from Baton Rouge affirm that after all the Yankees were not such a bad sort when one became acquainted with them, and that some of the towns-people were not ashamed to confess to a friendly feeling for the crews of the gunboats that were anchored in front of the city. The blue-jackets always acted like gentlemen when they came ashore, and, true to their instincts of traffic, had established a lively little trade with the citizens. They purchased everything the latter had to sell in the way of garden-truck, milk, butter, and eggs, and paid for all they got in good money; or, what was better, in coffee, tea (store tea too, and not sassafras), wheat flour, and salt. It is true that the salt was not as fine nor as clean as some they had seen, for it had been taken from the brine of the beef and pork barrels with which the store-rooms of the gunboats were abundantly supplied; but it was acceptable to people who had boiled down the dirt floors of their smoke-houses in order to get the salt that had trickled off the hams and sides of bacon which had been cured there in better times. The gunboat officers also sent their soiled linen ashore to be washed, so that not a day passed during which there was not more or less communication with the fleet.

This was a pleasant state of affairs all around, especially to the victorious blue-jackets, who had grown tired of fighting and wanted all the shore liberty they could get, and it might have continued until the Confederate General Breckenridge made his unsuccessful attempt to regain control of the Mississippi above New Orleans had it not been for two things: the Confederate Conscription Act, and the determination on the part of the Home Guards to evade it. The passage of that act was like a destructive thunder-bolt from a clear sky, and there were those in Mooreville who refused to believe that their chosen rulers would be guilty of such perfidy; but the news had hardly been received before the enrolling officer put in his appearance, thus proving the truth of what we have already said—that the Richmond Government developed into a despotism so suddenly that it was plain the machinery for it had been prepared long before.

The enrolling officer, Captain Roach, was a dapper little fellow who did not look as though he had seen much service, and, indeed, he hadn't seen a day of it; for when he received his commission and orders from the Governor he was a practising lawyer in a small inland town. Beyond the very slight knowledge which he had been able to gain from his printed instructions, he knew nothing of his duties or of soldiering; but his common-sense taught him that as Tom Randolph's commission was older than his own, military etiquette required that he should call upon Tom without any unnecessary delay—not to report to him, for Tom was not in the Confederate service or in any way connected with the conscription business, but merely to show him proper respect. He reached Mooreville in the morning, spent the rest of the day in opening an office and spreading abroad the news of his arrival, so that those whose duty it was to be conscripted would have no trouble in finding him, and the next morning mounted his horse and set out to find Captain Randolph. The first man he met on the road was Tom's first lieutenant. Captain Roach did not know him, but he saw that Lambert was anxious to ride on without speaking, and perhaps that was the reason he drew rein and accosted him.

"Good-morning," said the captain pleasantly. "You know I have opened an office in Kimberly's store, I suppose?"

"Say! What made you ask me that question for?" demanded Lambert, who was instantly on his guard.

"Because I take you to be over eighteen and under thirty-five, and would like to have you drop around and see me," was the reply.

"Well, I aint a-going to do it; and that settles it. See?"

"Really I don't see how you can get out of it."

"Don't, hey? Well, I do. I aint Confedrit. I'm State Rights."

"Are you not aware that there are no State Rights people any more?" asked the captain. "The conscription act that has just been passed withdraws all non-exempt citizens between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five from State control, and places them absolutely at the disposal of the President during the war."

"But I aint agreeing to no such 'rangement, don't you know?" exclaimed Lambert, who did not like to see the enrolling officer so quiet and confident, for it looked as though he knew what he was talking about. "That was just what Lincoln wanted to do when he called on our Gov'nor for soldiers to whop South Car'liny; but our Gov'nor he said he wasn't that kind of a feller, and his men shouldn't go out of the State. Why don't he stick to his word and say the same to Jeff Davis?"

"My friend, you don't understand the situation at all——" began the captain.

"Better'n you do, by a long sight," interrupted Lambert. "I aint agreeing to no such bargain, I tell you. Them as wants to go to Virginy to light for the 'Federacy can go for all me; but I don't want to go, and, by gum! I won't. And furder, I'm a Home Guard."

"In your case that doesn't matter. The government would be quite willing to stretch a point in favor of home organizations that have proved themselves to be worth something, but you Mooreville fellows haven't done the first thing for the cause. You have turned some of our friends against us, but where are the Yankees you have shot, and how many prisoners have you taken?"

"Look here, by gum!" exclaimed the lieutenant.

"I have heard all about you, and the Governor says in the letter he sent with my commission that the best thing I can do is to send you to a camp of instruction," continued the captain. "You are no good here, for you don't do anything."

"Dog-gone my pictur'! What's the reason we aint been doing something for the cause right along?" shouted Lambert, his red face showing that he was getting angry. "We've been the means of keeping the Union men in these parts from rising up and taking the country for the Yankees, and more'n that—we licked a gunboat in the river. Who told you we aint done nothing? It must be some enemy of ourn who aint got the spirit to jine in with us, and if I can find out who he is I'll make him sorry for it, I bet you. But you can't conscript me, I tell you. I'm an officer appointed by the Gov'nor."

"Ah! That does make a difference, perhaps."

"Well, I reckon it does," said Lambert, with a satisfied smile.

"Do you happen to have your commission with you? Or will you tell me when I can see it?"

This was what Lambert himself would have called a "side-winder," and his first thought was to hunt up Tom Randolph, and stand over him with his riding-whip until he had seen him write to the Governor asking for that long delayed commission. Tom had often promised to do it, but he never had, and now Lambert was likely to see trouble on account of his negligence.

"I am first leftenant of our company; my commission is all right, and that settles that point," said he at length. "If the Yankee General Butler brings his army from New Orleans to capture Mooreville he will run against a snag, for he will find me and my men here to stop him. We jined to guard our homes. That's why they call us Home Guards, and that settles the other point you was speaking of. We aint got no pris'ners to show, kase there aint no Yankees come nigh us; but we are just as much use here as we would be up there in Virginy."

"We need every man we can get," replied Captain Roach. "Those who do not come of their own free will must expect to be taken by force, unless they can show that they are of use at home. You Mooreville Home Guards have had the finest chance in the world to make a name for yourselves. Why didn't you drive those gunboats away from Baton Rouge long ago?"

"Shucks!" exclaimed Lambert. "Why, man alive, they've got cannons on 'em."

"What of it? Couldn't you hide behind the levee, where you would be safe, and pick off every sailor who showed his head above decks? Couldn't you keep those small boats from coming ashore and going back loaded down with provisions? You have been giving aid and comfort to the enemy by permitting such things, and that's contrary to law. But I must ride along, for I am on my way to visit Captain Randolph. I am not sure that you are exempt simply because you are an officer in the State militia, but will tell you the next time we meet."

"You needn't mind looking it up, for I aint going, I tell you. But I'll tell you one thing, and that aint two: if you take me you will have to take Tom Randolph likewise. I'll raise a fuss if you don't."

The two separated, and the enrolling officer kept on his way to the home of Captain Randolph, who had somehow heard that he might look for a distinguished visitor on this particular morning, and was thrown into a state of great excitement by the unwelcome news. The presence of the enrolling officer in town was all the evidence Tom needed to prove that there was no immediate danger of an invasion by the Federals, so he brought his uniform from its hiding place in the garret; and when he had arrayed himself in it, and leaned his sword in one corner of the gallery to show that he was prepared to answer when duty called, he was ready for the visit—that is, as ready as he ever would be, for he would not have seen Captain Roach at all if he could have thought of any way to avoid it. Rumor said that the captain looked as though he might have come out of some lady's bandbox, but all the same Tom supposed him to be a Confederate veteran who had seen service on many a hardly contested field, and who would overawe him with his profound knowledge of military matters. Tom wished now that he had made a little better fight with that gunboat, or that he had slipped into Baton Rouge some dark night with a few picked men and pulled down the flag that the Yankee sailors had hoisted over the arsenal.

"Oh, what honors I might have gained for myself if I had only thought of these things before," he said to his mother. He always went to her with his troubles now, or when he stood in need of encouragement and advice, his father having told him somewhat sharply that he had washed his hands of the Home Guards and never wanted to hear of them again as long as he lived. "But that is the way it is with me. My wit comes too slow to be of any use."

"I am very glad that you did not think of them before, you reckless boy," replied Mrs. Randolph. "Your record is better than I wish it was, for I am afraid it will take you into the army. What would you do if this enrolling officer should decide to take the company just as it stands, and swear you into the Confederate service?"

"Cæsar's ghost!" cried Captain Tom, in great alarm. "If my record as a loyal soldier leads him to do that, I shall be sorry I ever put on this uniform. What could I do?"

"Could you not follow the same course that Rodney Gray pursued, when General Lacey came up from New Orleans to swear the Mooreville Rangers into the Confederate Army?" inquired Mrs. Randolph.

"Mother, if you were a man you would be a general yourself," exclaimed Tom, his fears vanishing on the instant. "If a first duty sergeant can back down a major-general, I reckon a captain in the State militia can do the same for a Confederate captain."

He spoke boldly enough, but when one of the house servants came in to tell him that there was a strange soldier riding into the yard he felt his courage oozing out at the ends of his fingers, and he would hardly have dared to go to the door to meet his visitor if his mother had not assured him that she would go also, and that she would remain close at his side to support him during the dreaded interview.

The enrolling officer did not look like a very stern soldier, she told herself, when she saw him get off his horse and shake hands with Tom, who had hastened down the steps to meet him; but then he was backed up by the whole tremendous power of the Confederate Government, and it was to her interest and Tom's to make a friend of him if she could. Captain Roach was equally anxious to secure Tom's assistance in the disagreeable and perhaps dangerous work he had to do, and the consequence was it was no trouble at all for them to get acquainted, or to come to an understanding with one another. After they had spent a few minutes in talking over the situation, and the enrolling officer had shown his written instructions, as well as a copy of the law by which he was supposed to be governed, the latter said:

"What surprises me very much is that there is not the first word said about exemptions. Whether it was an oversight or not the fact remains that, according to this law, every man between the specified ages must be conscripted."

"And that is perfectly right," said Captain Tom, making a hurried mental list of certain persons in the neighborhood whom he would be glad to see go first of all. "Everybody except our Home Guards."

"No, sir," said Captain Roach in tones so decided that Tom's under jaw began to drop down. "The law excepts nobody; but wait a minute. After the regiments and companies that have gone to the front from this State are filled up, the rest of the conscripts will remain at home as a reserve to be drawn upon at intervals of not less than three months, so that our organizations in the field can be kept always full. Now, why can't you help me so as to keep your company of Home Guards together as long as possible? If we work it right perhaps you will not be called upon at all."

"That's the idea!" exclaimed Tom, greatly relieved, while his mother smiled her approval of the suggestion, and told Captain Roach on the spot that she expected him to stay to dinner, and as long as he remained in that part of the country to make himself as free in her house as he would in his own. When she ceased speaking Tom continued: "I am like Nathan Hale, who, when the British were about to hang him as a spy, said he was sorry he had but one life to give to his country; but for all that I should like to stay here until I have seen some of our neighbors who have had so much to say against the South sent to the front. But how shall I work it to keep my company together?"

"By doing as you have suggested," replied the captain. "By first sending away those who ought to be made to fight for the South, since they have had so much to say against her and her cause. Perhaps by the time they have been killed off our independence will be acknowledged; and then we shall not need any more soldiers."

"That's the idea!" said Tom again. "But how can the Home Guards help you?"

"By serving in place of the troops that I am authorized to call on for assistance," answered Captain Roach. "There will be a camp of instruction established somewhere in the vicinity very shortly, and it will be my duty to forward my conscripts to that camp as fast as I can get them together. Of course they will not go willingly——"

"I understand," interrupted Captain Tom. "You want me to send some of my men with them as guards."

"Exactly. It will be a feather in your cap as well as in mine if we can attend to the business without calling upon the government for aid. I don't want to do that if I can avoid it, for every man we can raise is needed at the front to resist McClellan's advance upon Richmond. We must be alive, for there's going to be hot work up there."

"I am with you; and I don't know of anything that would suit the Home Guards better," replied Tom, glad of the opportunity to gain a little cheap notoriety without putting himself in danger; and when Captain Roach rode away from the house after dinner Tom accompanied him to his office in Kimberly's store, and assisted in obtaining some poll-books from which he could make out a list of the unhappy men who were subject to military duty under the terms of the Conscription Act.

Of course there were a goodly number of young fellows in the settlement between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one whose names did not appear on the poll-books, for they were not voters; but Tom had them in his mind, and with his mother's aid and Lambert's he succeeded during the following week in making out a complete list of them. At the head of the list stood the name of Edward Griffin, Drummond's assistant operator, who had warned Rodney Gray that he was to be arrested the moment he left the boat at St. Louis; but Drummond's name did not appear at all.

"Griffin is a particular friend of one of my worst enemies," explained Tom. "Not only is he strong for the Union, but he has had a good deal to say about me and my company behind our backs, and I want you to serve a notice on him the first thing you do. I wish they would make haste and establish that camp of instruction, and when Griffin is sent there I want to command the squad that goes with him. I wish, too, that Rodney Gray was here to go with him."

In the meantime events proved that the people of the South were not as willing to submit to the despotic acts of their government as they ought to have been, especially in Georgia and Arkansas, "where it seemed that a conflict might arise between State and Confederate authorities." Officers of the militia in the former State were arrested by the enrolling officers, but the Governor demanded their release and threatened to arrest the Confederates if they did not let his State officers alone. The Richmond Government yielded the point, but said to the Governor of Georgia, through the Secretary of War: "If you arrest any of our enrolling officers in their attempts to get men to fill up the Georgia regiments now in the face of the enemy, you will cause great mischief. I think we may as well drive out our common enemy before we make war upon each other." In Arkansas Governor Rector threatened to secede from the Confederacy, and called for 4500 men to defend the State, adding that "the troops raised under this call are intended exclusively for home protection, and will not, under any circumstances, be transferred to the Confederate service without their consent." In short, the Confederacy was in a very bad way, and their authorities knew it; for on the 21st of April the congress "adjourned in such haste as to show that the members were anxious to provide for their own personal safety." That was the time when a rebel newspaper invented the word "skedaddle," and that was the time too when McClellan could have taken Richmond; but he "wasted three full months, every day of which was of vital moment to the Confederacy, in doing nothing," and when at last he was ready to advance, he found himself confronted by an army that was larger than his own.

The murmurs of dissatisfaction that arose all over the South when that sweeping Conscription Act was passed were not entirely lost upon the Richmond government, and the next news that came to Mooreville was that another act had been passed providing for exemptions. Rodney Gray's father was one of the first to hear of it, and the next time he went to Mooreville he stopped at the telegraph office and called Ned Griffin to the door. The young fellow had been very much distressed ever since he received notice from Captain Roach to hold himself in readiness to march to the camp of instruction with the first squad of conscripts that left town, and Tom Randolph had been mean enough to let him know how his name happened to be first on the list. Griffin was the only support of a widowed mother, and he knew that things would go hard with her when the small sum he received for his work in the telegraph office ceased to come into her hands every month. More than that, he believed in the Union and the flag that waved over it, and did not want to fight against his principles. When he came to the door in answer to Mr. Gray's hail he looked as though he had lost the last friend he had in the world.

"I came here to cheer you up a bit by telling you that you need not go into the army if you don't want to," was the way in which Rodney's father announced the object of his visit. "The new law provides for the exemption of one agriculturist on each farm, where there is no white male adult not liable to military duty, employing fifteen able-bodied negroes, on condition that the party exempted shall give bond to deliver to the government, in the next twelve months, 100 pounds of bacon or its equivalent in salt pork, and 100 pounds of beef for each able-bodied slave employed on said farm."

Young Griffin gasped for breath, but did not say a word in reply. He did not smile either, as Mr. Gray did, for he failed to see how that new law could affect him.

"Now, I happen to have such a farm up the river road," continued the planter. "There's no one on it but a driver to look out for things, and if you have a mind to go up and take charge of it I shall be glad to have you. And I think I can put you in the way of earning more money than you do now."

"But, Mr. Gray, I am not an overseer," stammered Griffin, who wished from the bottom of his heart that he had chosen that humble but useful vocation instead of telegraphy. "I don't know the first thing about farming."

"Well, you can't learn younger, can you?"

"No, sir. But I—you see—the fact of the matter is, where are the bacon and beef to come from? If they were selling at a dollar a ton I couldn't buy a hundred pounds."

"You have a whole year in which to pay it," replied Mr. Gray. "But I don't believe in going in debt, and perhaps we can scare up cattle and hogs enough on the farm to fill the bill; and I shall depend on you to raise others to replace them. I think you had better go. You can take your mother along to keep house for you, and I don't see why you can't live as well there on the farm as you do here in town. Tell Drummond to come out here a moment."

"Mr. Gray," said Griffin, with tears of gratitude in his eyes, "I wish you would ride around to our house and let mother thank you for your kindness. I don't know how."

"I will save her and you the trouble," said the planter, bending down from his saddle and speaking in tones so low that none of the passers-by could hear his words. "Who was it that kept Rodney from falling into the clutches of that Yankee cotton factor in St. Louis? Tell Drummond to come here."

Drummond came, and Griffin afterward said that he never saw so mad a man as his chief was when the planter explained matters to him in a few brief but emphatic words. The operator had nothing against Griffin personally, but Tom Randolph had, and as Tom had been friendly enough to keep his name off the enrolling list, Drummond felt in duty bound to make common cause with him.

"Mr. Gray, I am afraid it won't work," said he. "Griffin was conscripted before that exemption law was passed."

"I am prepared to take the risk," was the quiet rejoinder. "In case objections are made we shall insist on having the first conscripts selected from the poll-books instead of from a private list; and if any objections are made to that we will report the matter at headquarters. Your name comes pretty close to the top of the list, Mr. Drummond."

The operator was frightened and saw plainly that it would not be a safe piece of business to make an enemy of Mr. Gray; he knew too much. Besides, he was one of the richest planters in the State, and such men always exerted a good deal of influence when they set about it.

"Of course, sir, I hope it will work," Drummond hastened to say, "for I don't want to see anybody forced into the army. I only said I was afraid it wouldn't."

"I understand. Ned, you might as well start now as any time. Go and say good-by to your mother, and hurry up to my house. I will be there in a couple of hours, and after we have had a snack we'll ride up to the farm."

From the telegraph office Mr. Gray went to Kimberly's store, where he created another commotion. Tom Randolph was there, and so were some of the Home Guards, who had of late taken to spending all their waking hours at the enrolling office. Captain Tom would have protested loudly if his amazement and chagrin had permitted him to speak at all, but Captain Roach had no objections to offer when Mr. Gray told him that he would have to find someone to take Griffin's place in the first squad of conscripts that was sent to the camp of instruction, for Griffin himself was exempt under the law, or would be as soon as he had taken his new position.

"I am surprised at you," exclaimed Tom when Mr. Gray had mounted his horse and galloped away. "You mustn't let that man Griffin off; you can't. Haven't I told you that he is Union?"

"I have my own interests to look out for," replied Captain Roach rather sharply, "and consequently I cannot afford to get into trouble with such a man as Mr. Gray. He didn't say much, nor did he bluster at all; but I knew by the glint in his eye that there was a whole battery of big guns behind the little he did say, and that he was ready to turn them loose on me if I said an ugly word to him. We haven't been playing square since this thing began, and he knows it; and if he should insist on having a new deal from the poll-books, with your list of names thrown out, where would your friend Drummond be? Where would you be, seeing that even Home Guards are not exempt?"

"I just don't care; and that's all there is about it," whined Tom, who was mad enough to cry if he had been alone. "They ought to be exempt, and I don't see why those Richmond fellows left them out."

"That's neither here nor there. They left them out; but in working to keep you with me I have practically exempted you, and that is something I had no business to do. I can't imagine where Mr. Gray got his information, but he understands all this, and if he should report me to the Governor I'd have to join some regiment in the field; and that's a place I want to keep away from as bad as you do."

"Well, I must say that things have come to a pretty pass when a man can say who shall go into the army and who shall not, just because he happens to have a little money," declared Tom spitefully.

"That's the way the thing stands, and if you want to stay at home you and your men had better be doing something."

These chance words, which really did not mean anything, set some of the Home Guards to thinking.

CHAPTER IV.
LIEUTENANT LAMBERT'S CAMPAIGN.

Of course the principal topic of conversation at the enrolling office during the rest of the day was Mr. Gray's unexpected interference in behalf of Ned Griffin, the conscript. It frightened Captain Roach, enraged and disgusted Tom Randolph, and put Lieutenant Lambert into a very anxious frame of mind. The latter was obliged to confess that his chances for keeping out of the army were very slim indeed.

"That's the way the thing stands, and if you want to stay at home you and your men had better be doing something," he kept saying to himself as he galloped along the dusty road on his way home. It was easy enough for Captain Roach to talk, but what was there that the Home Guards could do to distinguish themselves, seeing that the Federal troops were so secure in their position at New Orleans that the whole Confederate Army could not drive them out, and that the gunboats in the river in front of Baton Rouge could not be whipped by men who were armed only with squirrel rifles and shot guns? Lambert had been turning the matter over in his mind ever since Mr. Gray left the enrolling office in the morning, and now he did something which he had declared he never would do as long as he lived. He went out of his way to ask the advice of a Confederate veteran who had just returned from the Army of the Centre disabled by wounds received in battle.

There were several of these crippled veterans in the neighborhood, and they had been so many thorns in Tom Randolph's side ever since they first began straggling home from the front. To begin with, they turned up their noses at the Home Guards, and made all manner of sport of their finely uniformed captain when they saw him riding along the road slyly pricking his horse with his spurs to make the animal prance and go sideways, as an officer's horse ought to do. They laughed, too, when they heard the Home Guards tell of their fight with that gunboat, and some of them went so far as to declare that, disabled as they were and half dead with camp fever besides, they could arm themselves with corn-stalks and drive Tom Randolph and his warriors into the Mississippi River.

In the next place, almost all these veterans had brought home with them a goodly supply of Yankee relics and trophies in the shape of uniform coats, pants, caps, and overcoats that had been picked up on the field, and which, for some reason or other, they seemed anxious to get off their hands. So they offered them to the Home Guards in exchange for citizens' clothing of equal or less value, and the latter were always found willing to trade. Captain Tom was disgusted and angry when first one man and then another appeared at the enrolling office clad in some portion of a shabby uniform that had once belonged to a Federal trooper or infantry-man, and ordered the wearers to clear out and never come there again unless they could come properly dressed; but the Home Guards paid no sort of attention to him. They were soldiers, they said, and since their own government did not think enough of them to provide them with uniforms they felt at liberty to obtain them where they could. Besides, their new clothes, even though they were well worn and had once belonged to Lincoln's hirelings, were warm and comfortable, and the blue overcoats would keep out next winter's cold as effectually as gray ones. Much against his will Tom finally appealed to the enrolling officer; but the latter could not help him, for he had no authority over the Home Guards.

"But you might threaten to conscript them if they don't obey my orders," suggested Tom.

"I shouldn't like to do it for a little thing like that," replied Captain Roach. "They've got the uniforms, and I don't see how you are going to keep them from wearing them. What difference does it make, anyway? You don't have to go on dress parade."

"No matter for that," replied Tom. "I didn't enter the service to command a lot of Yankees, and I won't do it. Suppose a general officer should happen along and order them out for drill and inspection! I'd feel so ashamed of myself that I know I should take to my heels."

"Make your mind easy on that score," was the captain's answer. "If you don't take to your heels until that happens you will never run. Judging from what I have learned since I have been here, the government cares no more for companies of this kind than it does for so many wild hogs in the woods. If it were not for you and your mother I would conscript the last one of them."

"But what do you suppose makes the returned veterans so anxious to get rid of these Yankee uniforms and things?" continued Tom. "It looks to me as though there might be something back of it."

"That's the way it looks to me, too," replied Captain Roach. "They don't want to have a Yankee scouting party ride up on them suddenly and say: 'Look here, Johnny; have you been robbing some wounded or captive Yank? If not, where did you get those blue clothes?'"

"But the Yankees are not here," cried Tom.

"I know they are not here now, but they're coming; and if they keep on besting us at every point, as they are doing at this minute, they will be here before long, too. You needn't think that Farragut is going to remain idle down the river, or that Flag-Officer Davis is going to keep on doing nothing up the river while we are fortifying Vicksburg. There's going to be fun here one of these days."

And sure enough there was. It came much sooner than Captain Roach had any reason to think it would, and Lieutenant Lambert of the Home Guards, whom we saw on his way to ask advice of a Confederate veteran, was the man who did the most to help it along. He found the soldier of whom he was in search at his home. He was sitting on the gallery enjoying his after supper smoke; but when he saw the Home Guard alight at his gate he staggered to his feet, laid hold of the crutch that leaned against the house behind his chair, and said, in mock alarm:

"The man you want to see don't live here no more. He done moved outen the country two year ago come next July. Clear yourself. I'm that skeared of gray-back soldiers that I can't sleep none fur a week after seein' one of 'em."

"Aw! Quit your nonsense," growled Lambert, "or, by gum! I'll come there and lick ye even if you aint got but one leg to defend yourself with." He hitched his horse at the fence, shook hands with the veteran, then seated himself on the porch close by his chair and continued: "Me and you have always been the best kind of friends, Abner, and I don't want you to sniff at me just kase you've been shot by the Yankees and I aint."

"I won't, Sile; I won't never do the like no more. But a Home Guard! And lickin' a gunboat that's got 'leven inches of iron on her sides and four foot of solid oak back of that, with nothing in the wide world but popguns!" said the veteran, taking his pipe from his mouth to indulge in a hearty peal of laughter. "And Tom Randolph fur a cap'n. That there is a leetle the worst I ever heard of. Hey-youp! Steady on the left centre!" he yelled, dropping his crutch upon the gallery and grasping with both hands the stump of his leg, which he had wrenched a little too severely during his paroxysms of merriment. "I almost disremembered that I aint got only part of a leg on this side. I left the rest up to Shiloh. I'm glad to see you again, Sile; I am so. But I would be a heap gladder if me and you had chawed hard-tack and fit the Yanks together. Then you wouldn't be no such triflin' thing as a Home Guard."

"But I don't want to fight no Yanks," said Lambert truthfully.

"Don't you want to fight no Yanks? Well, I don't know's I'm blamin' you fur that. They aint by no means the easy fellers to lick that we uns thought they was goin' to be, and when they set up that yell of theirn to let we uns know they was comin' fur us—I tell you, Sile, my hair always riz when I heard that yell, and I wisht I was to home grabblin' fur taters."

"Then what makes you poke fun at me fur?" demanded Lambert. "I am to home now and I want to stay; but Cap'n Roach he allows that if we uns don't do something pretty sudden we're liable to be conscripted."

"Like enough. Then why don't you uns do something?"

"That's what I come here to see you about. What is they, I'd like to know, that we can do? If the Yanks would only come where we be [you will notice that Lambert did not say "Yankees" any more. He copied the veteran and used the shorter word], we uns could show the folks about here that we Home Guards aint by no means the useless truck they take us to be; but we can't go all the way to New Orleans fur the sake of fightin' 'em."

"You uns will see Yanks enough if you stay right where you be," said the veteran, with another laugh. "I aint spilin' fur a sight at any more of 'em, but all the same I look to see them ridin' right along this road while I am settin' on my gallery watchin' of 'em. They aint come this clost to Mooreville to go away without seein' it. They're hoppin' us right along, and we had oughter be whopped."

"Now, just listen at you!" said Lambert reproachfully.

"I'm only tellin' you what I know," said the veteran in earnest tones. "Look at the way they're doin'! When the law was passed that everybody must be conscripted, why didn't they go to work and conscript everybody? Why didn't they put the old soldiers ahead and shove the Johnny Raws into the ranks? Steader that they let the old soldiers stay in the ranks, and put over them fur officers a lot of new chaps who couldn't a'told a Yank from a ground-hog if they had seed the two standin' in one place. We uns aint a goin' to whop nobody with a lot of greenhorns to command us, and although I aint by no means glad to go hobblin' through the world on one leg, I am mighty glad of an excuse to get outen the army. Now, there's that there Rodney Gray."

"By gum! I wish he was here to be conscripted," exclaimed Lambert.

The veteran took his pipe from his mouth, blew a cloud of smoke into the air, and looked at his companion with an expression on his face which seemed to say that he did not know whether to laugh or get angry. But finally he concluded to laugh, and he did so most uproariously, rolling about on his chair as if he were in danger of falling out of it, but all the while taking good care not to give his wounded leg another wrench.

"Why, man, he's a soldier, Rodney is," he said as soon as he could speak, "and a mighty good one, too. He's been in more battles than me, and that's useless. He fit all through Missoury with Daddy Price, and then they brung him over to the Army of the Centre, and that's where I seen him. They wanted to make a big officer of him, but Rodney he wouldn't have it so, kase he's plum sick of the war, same as I be, and allows to come home soon's his extry three months is out. You can't tech Rodney Gray."

"I know that well enough, but I wish we could. You see, Tom Randolph——"

"You needn't say no more," laughed the veteran. "Rodney got an office in Cap'n Hubbard's Rangers and Tom didn't, and Tom is mad about it and wants to spite Rodney in some way. But he can't do it, and if he tries it ole man Gray will make him wish he hadn't."

"And ole man Gray is another chap I'd like mighty well to see sent to the front," exclaimed Lambert angrily; "but we can't touch him neither. He showed his hand when he come into the office this morning and told Roach that he'd have to let that Griffin boy go free, kase he allowed to buy him off with bacon and beef; and Roach was that skeared that he dassent open his mouth."

"What was he skeared of?"

"That ole man Gray would report him fur leavin' the names of Tom Randolph's friends off'n the conscript list, when he had oughter put them on like he found them in the poll-books."

"Like enough," replied Abner. "And then you and Tom Randolph and all the rest of the Home Guards would have stood as fine a chance of goin' to the front as Ned Griffin. It would serve you just right fur trainin' under such a no account cap'n as you have got. Why don't you cut loose from him and do something on your own hook? That would be me if I was you."

"'Taint safe," replied Lambert, who had not yet forgotten that he brought himself into trouble the last time he tried to do something on his own hook. "Somehow our folks have got to be mighty tender of the Union men about here and don't like to have them pestered."

"You let your Union neighbors alone and pester them that's got we'pons into their hands," said the veteran indignantly. "You uns aint got no call to fight them that can't fight back; but there's them gunboats down to the river."

"Well, what of 'em?" demanded Lambert, trembling at the bare thought of again venturing within gunshot of one of those black monsters. "They've got cannons on 'em, and they shoot balls bigger'n your head. Don't I know? Aint I been in a fight with one of 'em?"

"Shucks!" sneered Abner. "You stand about as much chance of bein' hit by one of them big balls as you do of bein' struck by lightnin'. I have seed me on the skirmish line lyin' fur hours behind a stump that wasn't no bigger'n a plug hat, while shell and solid shot was tearin' up the ground all around me. They don't do damage once a week less'n they're drapped into a line of battle or into a fort that is packed full of men."

"But how can we lick 'leven inches of iron and four foot of solid oak?" protested Lambert.

"Shucks!" exclaimed the veteran. "I aint talkin' about lickin' on 'em. I'm talkin' about pesterin' of 'em—drivin' their row-boats back when they start to come to the shore, and pickin' off the officers as fast as they come outen their holes in the cabin. You uns could lay behind the levee and do that, and be as safe as you be to home; kase the shells they would send at you would all fly over your heads, and when they bu'st they would be a mile to your rear."

The lieutenant of the Home Guards was overjoyed to hear these encouraging words fall from the lips of a man who had faced the Yankees in battle and knew what he was talking about. He had given his friend Abner to understand that he was one of the few who followed Captain Tom when the latter rode out with a handful of brave men to see if the Union Army was advancing upon Mooreville from Baton Rouge, but there was not a word of truth in his story. He was one of the majority who excused themselves and stayed behind, and all he knew about that desperate fight with the gunboat and the concealed battery that opened on the rear of the Home Guards was what his comrades told him. The veteran did not seem to think that the big guns on the war vessels were so very dangerous, and Lambert began to pluck up courage.

"'Pears to me that Cap'n Roach said something like that the first time I talked with him," said the latter.

"Like enough; and if he did you can bet that that is what he would do if he had as many Home Guards under his command as you have got. I can't fur the life of me see what makes them Baton Rouge folks so very friendly with the Yanks, anyhow. They take 'em into their houses and visit with 'em, and feed 'em, dog-gone it all, and I say such doings aint right. If ole Daddy Bragg was here fur about five minutes he'd put a stop to all that friendship business, I bet you, and like as not he'd have some of you Home Guards shot fur lettin' it go on as long as it has. Anyway, he'd kick Tom Randolph into the ranks and put a soldier in his place. That's the way they do things up in the Army of the Centre."

The result of this interview was that when Lieutenant Lambert took leave of the veteran and rode home to a late supper he was fully satisfied in his own mind that Tom Randolph was totally unfit for the responsible position he held, that the Home Guards, who under proper leadership might have made themselves known throughout the length and breadth of the Confederacy, had been kept in check too long already, and that he (Lambert), being second in command of the company, had a perfect right to take matters into his own hands without saying a word to anybody about it. But it was a somewhat delicate task, he told himself. Although Lambert looked upon the friendly relations existing between the crews of the Union war vessels and the Baton Rouge people as a burning disgrace, he did not relish the idea of trying to bring them to an end, for the citizens might not like it, and, worse than that, they might make him trouble on account of it; but something must be done or he would be compelled to go into the army, seeing that he had no rich and influential friend like Mr. Gray to purchase his release with bacon and beef. So Lambert's mind was made up, and before he reached home his campaign was fully planned.

"I'll raise a big squad and start for the city to-morrow night," he soliloquized, flourishing his riding-switch in the air to give emphasis to his thoughts. "And if I once gain a footing behind the levee I'll put a stop to that friendship business, I bet you. I'll give the folks to understand that we uns don't like the way they're giving aid and comfort to the enemies of their country, and make them Yankee gun-boatmen stay on board their ships where they belong. I'll take pains, too, to see that the Gov'nor hears of it, and perhaps he'll say that I had ought to be cap'n of the Home Guards in place of Tom Randolph."

That was an encouraging thought, and the longer Lambert dwelt upon it the more excited he became. He did not sleep much that night, and after an early breakfast mounted his horse and rode through the country to muster his men; but as fast as he found them and unfolded to them the details of his campaign he was met by the same excuses and refusals that Tom Randolph had vainly tried to combat. The fighting member of the company, the one who was always eager to shoot or hang the defenceless Union men he assisted in robbing, was feeling so very poorly on this particular morning that he was thinking strongly of riding over to a neighbor's to see if he could not borrow a dose or two of quinine; the second had promised to go to a log rolling; the third had a lame horse and didn't rightly know where he could go to get another; and not more than three or four out of the fifty men whom Lambert summoned to follow him to Baton Rouge had the courage and honesty to tell him that they did not like to do it.

"I wouldn't mind hiding behind the levee and shooting a few Yankees," said Lieutenant Moseley, "but they'll shoot back, and like as not that'll make the Baton Rouge folks mad at us. Ask somebody else. You can get all the men you want and I don't reckon I'll go."

Whenever a Home Guard talked to him in this way Lambert always said in reply:

"Well, then, if you don't want to go and win a name fur yourself you can stay to home till Roach gets ready to conscript you. If you were in Kimberly's store yesterday you must have seen fur a fact that we uns aint safe from going into the army just kase we happen to belong to the Home Guards. Cap'n Roach he has said time and again that we was liable to go if we didn't wake up and do something, and that if he had been our commander he wouldn't have let them city people get on such amazing good terms with the Yanks. Le's go down there and make 'em quit it right now, and say nothing to nobody till the thing is done. Remember, I don't ask every man, but only just them that we want to have stay in the company. When we get back I'll give Cap'n Roach a list of them that went with me, and if he wants to conscript the others—them that was afraid to face the enemies of their country—and send them to the camp of instruction, he can do it and welcome. Now, what do you say?"

It was by the use of such arguments as these that Lieutenant Lambert succeeded in inducing some of his particular friends to believe that it might be policy for them to join his expedition, and that night they secretly gathered at a designated place outside the town and started for Baton Rouge. When they arrived within sight of the church spires at daylight they did not attract attention to themselves by entering the city in a body, for Lambert was afraid that some Union man or converted rebel might suspect the object of their visit and interfere with their designs by signalling to the fleet. They separated and went in by different roads and in small parties, and came together again in the neighborhood of the landing at which the boats from the fleet always touched the shore, taking care to leave their horses behind some warehouses out of sight.

"Now be careful, everybody," commanded Lambert, placing a fresh cap on his rifle and waving his hand toward the levee as a signal to his men to advance and conceal themselves behind it. "We can't do 'em no damage from here—it's too fur; so we must wait till some of their row-boats come off."

The Home Guards bent themselves almost double and stole across the clear space that intervened between the warehouses and the levee; and so cautious were they in their movements that the quartermasters on watch on the decks of the different gunboats, who were constantly sweeping the banks on both sides of the river with their long-distance spyglasses, saw no signs of them, and so silent that when they crept to the top of the levee on their hands and knees and looked over it, the negroes gathered at the landing below did not know that there was anyone near them. There were probably a dozen men, women, and children in the group, and they were lying at their ease on the ground or walking slowly back and forth; but all of them turned their gaze toward the gunboats now and then, as if they were waiting for somebody to come ashore. There were several covered baskets and pails near by, and the sight of them was enough to enrage Lieutenant Lambert, who whispered to the man who lay next him behind the levee:

"Pass the word along the line fur everybody to keep under kiver. We've ketched them niggers red-handed in the very act, fur there's grub in them buckets and things; now you just watch and see if there aint." Then he raised his voice a little and said to the nearest darkey: "What you folks doing there? Who you looking fur?"

"Waiting for Mr. Wilcox, sah," was the negro's prompt answer. He looked up and saw two or three heads above the top of the levee, but thought nothing of it. There were a good many whites in Baton Rouge who did not dare show themselves as freely to the Yankee sailors as the people of his own color did.

"Who's Mr. Wilcox?" demanded Lambert.

"He's de cater ob de steerage mess, sah; de man what buys de breakfus' fur some of de officers on dat fust boat," was the reply; and although Lambert did not understand the words any better than the negro did himself, he gathered from them the idea that somebody on the gunboat would come ashore for his breakfast very shortly, and that he and his warriors had reached the levee just in the nick of time.

This cheering intelligence was passed along the line in a whisper, and the Home Guards pulled off their hats and were settling themselves into comfortable positions behind the levee to await the coming of the caterer's boat, when they were startled by hearing someone close beside them say, in frightened and protesting tones:

"Gentlemen, gentlemen, what are you going to do?"

Lambert faced quickly around and saw a couple of citizens standing at the base of the levee where they could observe all that was being done by the Home Guards; but whether they had come upon his ambush by accident or design the lieutenant did not know or care to ask. He saw the necessity for prompt action.

"Scrooch down right where you stand, so that the Yanks can't see you," he commanded.

"But what are you gentlemen going to do?" inquired one of the citizens, both of whom obeyed Lambert's order and sank upon their heels with alacrity when they saw the black muzzles of three or four double-barrels swinging in their direction.

"Well, if you can't see fur yourselves what we uns are going to do I reckon I'll have to tell you," replied the lieutenant of the Home Guards, turning part way around so that he could watch both negroes and citizens at the same time, and see that no signals passed from them to the fleet. "We're goin' to break up the visitin' and tradin' that's been going on between this town and the Yanks till we are teetotally sick and tired of it. The folks back in the country, who are all good Confederits, don't like it; and me and my men have come in here to say so in a way that both you and the Yanks will understand."

"Merciful Heaven!" exclaimed the man, who seemed to be almost overcome with astonishment and alarm. "You are not going to fire into those war vessels?"

"What's the reason I aint?" said Lambert coolly. "You just wait till one of their row-boats starts to come ashore and I'll show you."

"But consider for a moment——" began the citizen, his excitement bringing him to his feet.

"Down you go again," interrupted Lambert, drawing his cocked rifle to his shoulder. "We uns have considered the whole business. We know that we can't hurt 'leven inches of iron and four foot of solid oak back of that with we'pons like these we've got, but we can make them blue-jackets mighty jubersome about comin' ashore and being so very friendly with you Baton Rouge folks; and that's what we allow to do."

"In the name of God and humanity I protest against such an outrage!" said one of the men, whose pale face and firmly set lips showed that he would not have stopped with a mere protest if he had possessed the power to do anything else.

"You must not think of it, you madman!" cried the other. "Don't you know that the boats will return your fire, and that they can knock our town to pieces with a single broadside? There is no telling how many innocent women and children will be killed or maimed through your act of folly."

"Well, then, why didn't you think of all them things before you made friends with the enemies of your country?" answered Lambert. "But the gunboats won't fire on women and children. Leastways they didn't in New Orleans, and the folks in that burg were about as sassy as they could well be."

"If you are determined to carry your crazy scheme into execution, I beg that you will give us a little time to remove our families to a place of safety before you begin," said one of the citizens as he and his companion arose to their feet and turned to go away.