Part 5 (1/2)
”I don't see how any one could fail to understand the situation, sir,”
answered Al. ”Do you suppose I could find a place to-morrow?”
”Quite likely. You can go down town with me in the morning, and during the day we can call on several acquaintances of mine, some one of whom may be able to give you as good a position as you can well fill to begin with.”
Accordingly, quite early next morning they started for the business district. Mr. Colton's office was more than two miles from his home and they walked to Fifth Street and there took a horse car down town. The first place at which they called was a large wholesale grocery house whose proprietor, Mr. White, was a personal friend of Mr. Colton. The latter held a brief private interview with him, rapidly relating the circ.u.mstances under which the Briscoes had come to St. Louis, and then Al was called in. Mr. White liked him from the first, and within half an hour he was hard at work on an upper floor of the big warehouse, a.s.sisting one of the s.h.i.+pping clerks in getting down, checking, and sending out orders of goods. Mr. White had informed him that as soon as he was sufficiently familiar with the stock and the method of checking it out, he would himself be promoted to a position as s.h.i.+pping clerk.
Though as time went on and the days lengthened into weeks, Al was obliged to confess to himself that the business possessed few attractions for him, yet he applied himself industriously to mastering its details, feeling not only a sense of satisfaction in the knowledge that he was winning his employer's confidence and approval, but a still deeper pride in the fact that he was becoming able to bear a very material share of the modest living expenses of himself and his mother and sister. Although Mr. White imagined that Al's rapid progress in familiarizing himself with his work was due to a natural apt.i.tude for the business, the fact was that he was simply determined to get ahead and earn as much money as possible. A constant mental unrest, due chiefly to his suspense over Tommy's fate, possessed him, and he tried to soothe it as far as might be by becoming absorbed in his work. Beyond his natural anxiety for his brother, however, though he did not exactly realize it, was the repugnance to obligation, the unquenchable desire to have his mother and sister independent, which was a characteristic inherited from his st.u.r.dy father. He very soon qualified himself to take his place as a s.h.i.+pping clerk, thus securing an advance in pay, which enabled him still further to relieve his uncle's unwonted burdens.
Thus the Autumn went by and Mrs. Briscoe began to look impatiently for news from General Sibley, for they had been able to gather something in a fragmentary way from the St. Louis papers of the events which had taken place in Minnesota since they had left there, and they knew that Colonel Sibley had been made a brigadier general of volunteers for his skilful conduct of the Indian campaign. At length one day the long-looked-for letter came. Mr. Colton brought it out from his office, and with palpitating hearts the family gathered around Al while he read it aloud; for Mrs. Briscoe was too much agitated to read it. The letter was dated at Fort Snelling and was in General Sibley's own handwriting.
It read as follows:
_Mrs. Thomas Briscoe, St. Louis, Mo._
MY DEAR MADAM: It is with the deepest regret that I am obliged to inform you that thus far our efforts to recover your young son from his Indian captors have been unsuccessful. Late in September we rescued about two hundred and fifty white prisoners near the Yellow Medicine but he was not among them. We have also captured about two thousand of the Indian miscreants who were prominent in the late outbreak and ma.s.sacre, and they are now being tried by a court martial. Many of them are being convicted and will be executed.
Among them, however, is no individual satisfying the description of the captor of your son Thomas, as given to me by your elder son.
I have, however, received information which leads me to believe that this man is a Yanktonais from the region of the Missouri River, who is known to have been consorting with the Minnesota Indians during the late outrages and who has since fled into Dakota again. Indian prisoners whom I have interviewed claim that he took with him a white boy, who, I have little doubt, is your son. The several prisoners with whom I have conversed all agree that the child appeared to be in good health when they saw him, though I have been able to gather nothing further concerning him.
It is quite possible that his captor may weary of holding your son a prisoner during the coming winter and take him into one of the fur-trading posts along the Missouri River. But, in case this should not happen, I may say to you that it is the present intention of the Government to send strong expeditions against the hostile Indians about Devil's Lake and along the Missouri, next summer. I may be in command of one of the columns; but, whether I am or not, I beg to a.s.sure you that no efforts will be spared to effect the release of your son and his speedy restoration to you.
Nor is it at all probable that such a thorough campaign as is now contemplated will fail of the desired result, for it is the Government's purpose to pursue the Indians relentlessly until their last prisoner is recovered, until the last savage guilty of atrocities against the whites is given up to justice, and until the entire Sioux Nation is brought to submission.
With renewed a.s.surances of my deep sympathy and regret that I have no more satisfactory news for you at the present time, I beg to remain, my dear madam,
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
H. H. SIBLEY, Brig. Gen., U. S. V.
Mrs. Briscoe broke down completely on hearing this disappointing intelligence and could not be comforted for a long time. But the courageous spirit which had already carried her through so much finally rea.s.serted itself; since there was nothing to do except endure the suspense, she resolved to endure it patiently and not depress the spirits of those around her with her own griefs.
On his part Al felt at first that he could not bear to spend more time in idle waiting while his brother remained a captive. It seemed to him that he must start out and do something. But reflection showed him that this desire, though natural, was futile. Hard as the conclusion was, it seemed plain that the best thing was to trust General Sibley and the soldiers with the problem, at least for the present and until the results of the next summer's campaign could be known. Had he been old enough to enlist, Al would undoubtedly have joined the army in spite of everything, in order to be at the front and share in the search for his brother. But as he would not be sixteen until the early Spring of 1863, that was out of the question.
Nevertheless, the atmosphere of the place and the time in which he was living were well calculated to develop in him the strong military inclinations of his nature, and as the months went on he found it more and more difficult to be satisfied with the work in which he was engaged. There was hardly an hour of the day in which squads or companies of troops did not pa.s.s along the busy streets of St. Louis, and often full regiments, with bands playing and colors flying, or batteries of artillery rumbling over the cobble-stones, marched past on their way to the Levee to embark on steamers for the seat of war in the South. St. Louis was the great recruiting depot of the West, and at Benton Barracks, just beyond the Fair Grounds and only a few blocks from the Colton home, as many as twenty thousand men were nearly always quartered, mustering, drilling, outfitting and then marching away to take their places in the fighting armies at the front. News of battle was constantly in the air and the war formed the chief topic of conversation always and everywhere. Now it was the disastrous repulse of the Army of the Potomac at Fredericksburg, Virginia; then the terrible conflict at Murfreesboro, Tennessee; and then, a little later, the capture of Fort Hindman, at Arkansas Post, Arkansas; while authentic news and uncertain rumors of other battles, skirmishes, and military movements circulated constantly.
Though St. Louis was a Union city by a very substantial majority there nevertheless existed there a strong though suppressed Southern sentiment; but Al was even less inclined to be influenced by it than his father would have been, or than he would have been himself before his father's death. The reason was that public opinion in the North and West at this time held that the outbreak of the Indians in Minnesota had been instigated and encouraged by agents from the Southern Confederacy, who hoped, by precipitating an Indian war upon the Northwest, not only to divert a good many Union troops from the South but even possibly to effect a Confederate conquest of the Northwestern Territories. Happily for the fair fame of American civilization, it has in later years been quite clearly established that the Confederates had nothing to do with inciting the barbarous outbreak, but at the time it was firmly believed in the Northwest. Therefore it seems but natural that a person in Al's position, grieving for a father murdered and a brother carried away captive by the red fiends, should entertain bitterness toward those whom he believed to be largely responsible for his bereavement. This feeling but added to his interest in the military preparations of those who were going to fight the Southerners, and increased his desire to be a partaker in their toils and trials and triumphs.
When he found an opportunity to do so, as he did on Sunday afternoons and his other infrequent holidays, he occasionally went down to the river front where were to be seen the big transport steamers, starting out loaded to the guards with troops or coming in with cargoes of sick and wounded men, and where, also, were generally to be found one or more of the pugnacious-looking iron-clad gunboats which had been and still were fighting their way foot by foot down the battery-lined rivers of the South, carrying the flag of the Union into regions where it had been outcast for two years past. But more frequently his steps turned toward Benton Barracks, for there on the great parade ground between the huge barracks, each seven hundred and fifty feet in length, were always to be found swarms of troops at drill. Here he would see a squad of four or eight recruits receiving from a corporal instructions in the rudiments of tactics, such as the salutes, the facings, or the manual of arms. A little further on would be a regiment executing ponderous evolutions in company or battalion front.
Observing all these tactical exercises with lively interest and careful attention, Al soon began to comprehend the methods and objects of movements which at first seemed wholly bewildering. He obtained a copy of the ”United States Infantry and Rifle Tactics,” the text book then in use for the instruction of the United States troops, and spent evening after evening studying them until he was much more familiar with the contents than the average volunteer soldier several years his senior.
Though he could not utilize his knowledge because of his youth, he persisted in acquiring it, not only because he liked it but because he felt that eventually it would be useful to him, especially if he could ever carry out his cherished ambition of entering West Point.
One day in the Spring of 1863, Mr. White called Al into his private office.
”The chief commissary of subsistence in this city has asked me if I could tell him of a few good men to act as civilian clerks in his department,” said he. ”They must be men who understand something of staple groceries such as the army uses and who know how to get out orders and s.h.i.+p goods. Would you like to have such a position for a while?”
Al's eyes brightened. Such work would place him in closer touch with the army, an object which appealed to him strongly. But he bore in mind his obligations and answered, cautiously,
”I should like it very much, Mr. White, if you approve of it and if I could make as much as I do now.”
”The position will pay you a little more than you are getting now,” said Mr. White, leaning back in his chair as if to give plenty of time to the discussion, ”and it will give you some valuable experience if you aim to continue in the wholesale grocery business. The commissary department is handling enormous quant.i.ties of goods in St. Louis now and an insight into the Government's methods of transacting such a volume of business will be a great benefit to you. Of course, whenever you want to leave the Government's employ and come back here, your position will be open for you. You are very young for such a place but you have made such rapid progress and learned to do your work so well and thoroughly that I shall have no hesitation in recommending you as one of my best employees.”