Part 17 (1/2)

I have frequently taken twenty-five or thirty men for a scout into the country, to capture parties with loads of provisions for the Confederates, or to bring in some prisoners.

I have mentioned two guides, Modlin and Wynn, who were in the habit of going with me on these raids, and who were both taken prisoners at Plymouth, and escaped into the woods while on the march, after being spotted by some of the North Carolina troops as ”Buffaloes.”

These two guides, who were natives of North Carolina, and who knew every turpentine path through those immense pine forests, and who had friends outside our lines who kept them well posted on what was going on outside, while they in turn kept me posted as to the movements of the rebs.

One day Wynn came to me and said that he had positive information that five or six loads of bacon, for the Confederate army, would stop over night at a certain house about fifteen miles south of Plymouth, on the Was.h.i.+ngton road, and that the guard would consist of ten men besides the teamsters. I immediately rode up to General Wessel's headquarters and told him that I was going to take thirty men and go out on the Was.h.i.+ngton road at five o'clock that afternoon, and would return the next morning. I, as usual, procured the countersign for that night, so as to be able to get inside the picket post if I should come back in the night, and selecting thirty men, started at five p. m., guided by Wynn for the South.

After getting out about five miles, we left the road and followed one of the turpentine paths through the woods in a parallel direction.

It had become quite dark by this time and we proceeded in single file, Wynn and myself riding at the head of the column.

Among the men under my command that night was Sergeant C----, a tall, powerful man, and an excellent soldier, whose pluck could always be relied upon, but who had a great weakness for following up any noise on the march, especially if it sounded anything like the crowing of a c.o.c.k, and was therefore not always in the line while on the march.

We had proceeded about five miles through the woods when our path crossed a road at right angles, just at a school house.

As we crossed the road the guide said to me, there is a well on our left, keep to the right a little. We turned a little to the right and at the same time I ordered the word pa.s.sed down to the rear that there was a well on the left, keep to the right. This word was pa.s.sed from one to another until it had reached the rear of the column.

Now Sergeant C---- had stopped a little way back on some important business, probably connected with a chicken roost, and of course did not hear the cautionary word and after we had pa.s.sed on about two hundred yards a cry came from the rear of the column, C---- is in the well.

I halted the column, and going back found, by the aid of a lantern we carried, that both C---- and his horse were in a dry well about ten or twelve feet deep, and about as wide as it was deep. There was nothing to do but to buckle our saddle straps together, which C---- placed under his horse, and lift it out bodily and then pull C---- out.

This took us half an hour, and I was fearful that we would not reach the house before the teams had got started, and we would be unable to capture the guard. It was just daylight when we came out on the road, about six hundred yards from the house, and I at once charged down and surrounded it.

I secured six yoke of oxen and six loads of bacon, but could find no guard or teamsters. After placing my pickets I had some of the boys bring in a ham, and that, with some eggs and sweet potatoes, and a hoe cake that the woman cooked for us, together with some coffee, which we always carried with us, made us a good breakfast.

To our enquiries about the teamsters and guard, the woman told us that about half an hour before we came a company of Cavalry came from the opposite direction and pa.s.sed on towards Plymouth, and that at their approach, the guard and teamsters fled to the woods.

I took the teams and loads of bacon and, throwing out an advance and rear guard, proceeded back to Plymouth, not knowing what moment I might run onto this Cavalry troop, which I thought must be rebel Cavalry, as there were no Union Cavalry between Plymouth and Little Was.h.i.+ngton, which were about eighty miles apart, and knowing that no other troop had left Plymouth, and none would leave until my return.

I reached Plymouth without opposition and then learned that the troop that had pa.s.sed the house just before we got there, was thirty of our Cavalry from Little Was.h.i.+ngton, with dispatches for Plymouth, and had already arrived.

When I learned this I was very thankful that C---- had got into the well, for otherwise, we would have reached the road half an hour sooner and would in all probability have met this troop, and mistaken them for the reb guard, have charged them; and as they were not expecting to meet any one but enemies, they would very likely have attempted to break through and a fight would have taken place between us, which must have resulted in loss of life before the mistake was found out.

Shortly after this, Modlin, our other guide, wanted to move his wife and household effects into Plymouth and asked Captain Roache, who was then in command of the detachment of Cavalry, to accompany him to his farm, which was about fourteen miles from our lines, as a protection against a company of rebs that were sometimes in the neighborhood.

Captain Roache took eighty-five men of Companies ”A” and ”F,” and with Captain Hock, Lieutenant Russel and myself, accompanied him home.

I had command of the advance going out, and after we reached the house, was sent with twenty-five men across a piece of woods to another road, and about a mile out on that road, to a house where he thought I might capture some prisoners. Modlin went along as my guide, and as we emerged from the woods, and came out on the road near a school house, I dismounted and went into the school house to see if there was anyone there. I found on the hearth the dying embers of a fire and quite a number of egg sh.e.l.ls, showing that the school house had been occupied the previous night and a.s.suring me that there were rebs in the vicinity.

I did not delay, but moved rapidly down upon the farm house and surrounded it, but after a thorough search of the premises failed to reveal the rebs I was in search of, I mounted again and returned to Modlin's house, and found two carts loaded with his furniture, &c., and ready to start for Plymouth.

On our return trip Lieutenant Russel was placed in command of the advance, and I was given command of the rear guard of twelve men to protect the carts. The mule in the head cart was driven by one of my guards, who led his horse behind, and the other was driven by a darkey boy, and upon this cart was seated Mrs. Modlin, upon the top of a load of bedding, etc.

We had proceeded perhaps a mile, when we came to a small stream or run, where we stopped to water the horses. We were pa.s.sing through a swampy piece of woods, called cedar swamp, and just up the road, perhaps six hundred yards from the stream, was a small wood-colored meeting house.

The advance and the main column had watered and started on, and I was watering the horses of the rear guard, when a brisk fire of musketry was opened upon the column now four hundred yards ahead, from the woods on our right.

The column pushed by, and then halted and dismounted, while I told the mule-driver to drive up past before they had time to reload; but the mules were frightened at the firing and were hard to manage, and while I was a.s.suring Mrs. Modlin that she had nothing to fear, as they would not fire at a woman, my guard galloped past the firing up to the column, the one who was driving the mule deserting it, and mounting his horse, going with the rest. The mule thus left without a driver, ran away up towards the company, scattering the goods along the road. The darkey jumped off the other cart and ran into the woods, and as this mule started to run, Mrs.