CHAPTER XLI. THE LOST ARMY IN CAMP AT HELENA--NEGROES UTILIZED--THE END.
|Our story draws to a close. We have brought Harry and Jack to the banksof the great river, and there we will leave them. The army of GeneralCurtis had terminated a most arduous campaign. Since leaving Rolla inFebruary, six months before, it had marched more than six hundred miles,much of the way through a thinly-settled and inhospitable region, withbad roads, unbridged streams, and all the difficulties of locomotion ina new country. It had fought several minor engagements and skirmishes,and engaged in a battle of three days’ duration--that of Pea Ridge--outof which it emerged victorious after combating with a force three timesas great as its own. It had performed some of the best marching onrecord, and its men were ready to go through another campaign of thesame sort, only asking for a brief rest and for sufficient good foodto restore their accustomed strength. And the reader may be surethat nothing was kept from them that was within the power of thequartermasters to give, and the camps in and around Helena were a sceneof feasting and rejoicing, such as that quiet town on the Mississippihad never before known.
Harry and Jack were quite as ready as any one else for a good rest, anddid not hang back when there was a prospect of something nice to eat.As they strolled through the streets and along the levee of Helena theybuilt many castles in the air, and pondered upon what they had beenthrough since they left their homes a twelve-month before.
“Wonder how many miles we’ve traveled?” said Harry. “I leave out ofthe calculation the railway and steamboat traveling, and only includehorseback riding and on foot.”
“I don’t know, I’m sure,” replied Jack. “Let’s figure it up as best wecan, and see how it comes out.”
They proceeded to figure it, but frankly acknowledged that the job wasa difficult one, on account of their numerous scouting expeditions, manyof which they could n’t remember at the moment. Altogether they thoughtit must have been not far from a thousand miles up to the time they madetheir last departure from Rolla. The army, as we have seen, had marchedsix hundred miles from Rolla to Helena, and as the boys had made manyscouting and other expeditions around Pea Ridge, Forsyth and Batesville,they thought it not unfair to add four hundred miles to the total of thearmy’s movements, making two thousand miles altogether.
“Just think of it!” exclaimed Jack. “Two thousand miles! Why, that’stwo-thirds the distance, about, from New York to San Francisco. It’s abig lot of traveling, especially when it’s been done on the quarter-deckof a horse, and sometimes under very hard circumstances. We’ve been manytimes in peril of our lives, passed through a great many privations,been cold and wet and hungry, but for all that, here we are as healthyas a couple of young tigers, ready for the next adventure that turnsup.”
“Yes, that’s so,” replied Harry; “and I suppose you don’t want to gohome just now, do you?”
“Not I,” was the ready response; “but we ‘ll see what our folks sayabout it, and also what the general says.”
“We haven’t had any letters for a long time,” said Harry, “andfurthermore we have n’t sent any, for the very simple reason that themails could n’t get either to or from us. We’ve been buried in thewilderness as much as though we had been in the middle of Africa.”
“Yes,” replied Jack; “and that reminds me of something I heard GeneralVandever saying this morning. He had a newspaper which somebody broughtdown on a steamboat from Memphis, and I heard him telling GeneralWashburne that the newspapers were full of articles about us, and therewas a great deal of anxiety concerning General Curtis and his army.”
“Then he laughed,” continued Jack, “and said they were speaking of usas ‘The Lost Army.’ Nothing had been heard from us for such a long timethat they were afraid we’d been lost and could n’t get back again, orperhaps the rebs had killed or captured us all.”
“Well, we have n’t been lost very much,” said Harry, with what may becalled an audible smile. “We’ve always known where we were, and wheneverthe enemy attacked us he had reason to know that we knew. But, I say,Jack, that gives me an idea.”
“What is that?”
“Why, if we ever write a story of our campaigns that ‘ll be a goodname for it. We ‘ll call it ‘The Lost Army,’ and it ‘ll be a first-ratetitle.”
“That’s so,” Jack answered, “and it will be quite as truthful as manytitles of books I’ve seen. Very often when you read a book there’s verylittle in the pages of the volume that seem to have been suggested bywhat you find on the title-page.”
“Just so,” said Harry, “and a man will have to read clear through tothe last chapter before he finds out what The Lost Army was. And whenhe does find out he ‘ll agree with us that we have n’t been going roundgetting lost very much.”
We had the permission of the youths to give the account of theirexperiences in the southwest, and have taken it, title and all. This iswhy our story has been called as the reader has seen.
Helena continued to be a permanent military post from that time onward,but the rebels did not attempt to disturb it, for the double reason thattheir force of troops on the west of the Mississippi was small, and nogood could come from a raid on the town when they would not be ableto hold it more than a few hours, only until gun-boats could arrive todrive them away. General Curtis was ordered to St. Louis to take commandof the Department of the Missouri, and operate against the rebels thatwere making things somewhat lively in the neighborhood of Springfieldand Fayetteville. A portion of the troops that had composed The LostArmy remained at Helena, but the greater part were ordered to join thecorps that made the second attack on Vicksburg and ultimately succeededin reducing that important stronghold of the rebellion.
Two or three weeks after the arrival of General Curtis at Helena wordwas received of a party of rebels some twelve or fifteen miles away ina northerly direction. Two companies of the Third Wisconsin Cavalry wentto look for the enemy, and were accompanied by our young friends.They found the enemy, and very unexpectedly too, for they ran into anambuscade; but happily the aim of the rebel rifles was so bad thatonly two or three men were injured. Then the unionists “went in,” and thrashed the rebels, compelling them to retreat after the lossof several of their number. Harry and Jack had each a prisoner to hiscredit, though it is proper to say that they were not captured in fairfighting. The way of it was this:
After the fighting was over the youths dismounted to look over theground and pick up anything that might be of value or would indicateto what company or regiment, if any, the men they had been engaged withbelonged. They had done this on several occasions to advantage, and inthe latter part of their campaigning it was a rule to which they adheredwhenever circumstances permitted.
While they were inspecting the scene of the skirmish, Harry came to alarge tree which proved on examination to be hollow. He remarked to Jackthat it was a good place for a man to hide in, to which Jack repliedthat it would hold half a dozen or more if they did n’t mind a littlecrowding.
“Who knows but that some of those fellows hid there when they found wewere getting the best of’em,” said Harry. “Suppose we investigate thattree.”
Jack agreed to it, and they approached the tree, cocked their pistolsand pointed them up the hollow into the darkness.
“Come down out of that,” said Harry, in a commanding tone, “or we ‘llshoot daylight into you.”
There was no response, and Harry was about to turn away when Jack, morein fun than with any expectation of finding anybody, called out:
“Come down, I say. You ‘ll have just five seconds to come in.”
“I’m a-coming,” said a weak voice from the darkness, much to thesurprise of the boys, and a moment later down slipped a forlorn looking“Butternut,” who was evidently greatly frightened.
“Surrender!” shouted Harry, “and tell the rest of’em to come rightaway.”
“There’s only one more feller there,” said the prisoner, who surrenderedby throwing his hands in the air and droppi
ng his shotgun on theground. The summons was renewed, and down came the “one more feller” andsurrendered after the same fashion; and this was the way their prisonerswere taken.
“Not quite as meritorious a performance as capturing them in openfighting,” said Harry; “but then it’s like hooking a fish in the sideinstead of catching him in the regular way by the mouth--he counts justthe same.”
During their stay at Helena Harry and Jack made themselves useful inlooking after the negroes that flocked there for protection, and theywere sometimes derisively mentioned by their comrades as managers of theFreed-men’s Bureau. But they took the satire good-naturedly and wenton with their work, which consisted of aiding in the distribution ofrations, making lists of the negroes as fast as they came in, assigningthem to different parts of the camp, helping them to their free-papers,drafting out all who were able to work, and sending them to the levee toaid in unloading steamboats, or into the forests in the neighborhood ofHelena, where they were employed to cut wood. At every opportunity theyendeavored to instill into the negro-mind the idea that freedom didn’t mean idleness, and insisted that the best way of making thisfact understood was to put the negro at work, even if work had to bemanufactured for him.
Consequently when there was nothing else to be done, Harry would takethe negroes who were under his orders and set them to throwing up afortification around the camp. When it was completed he pretended towish to change something about it, and thus the earth of which it wascomposed was handled over several times in succession.
The last we saw of our young friends in the camp at Helena they werelooking on and listening one Sunday evening when the negroes were havinga religious meeting. Several negro preachers harangued the assemblage intheir quaint and forcible way. Prayers were offered, and three or fourhymns were sung with great fervor, all the congregation joining, andfairly making the woods ring with their voices.
THE END.
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