How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion Part 6

"Put everything right back onto yourself, and come out at your leisure, and we took the medicines and went out of the schoolhouse. Presently She came out, and I told her it was my duty to take her back to headquarters, but if she had no objections to my taking the letter to the general, with the medicines, she could go back to the house where she boarded, and I thought if she took the first boat for New Orleans, it would be all right, and I would see that the letter was sent through the lines to her husband. I helped her on her horse, and I said:

"You can escape. Your horse is better than ours, and though you are a prisoner, we would not shoot at you if you tried to escape. I hope your prayers will have the effect you desire, and that the trouble will soon be over. I hope you will and the children well, and that the husband will be spared to be a comfort to you."

She bowed her head, as she sat in the saddle, and the look of defiance which she had shown, was gone, and one of thankfulness, peace, hope, purity, took its place. She handed me the letter, and asked:

"Can I go?"

I told, her she was free to go. She turned her horse; towards town, touched him with the whip, and he was; away like the wind. I stood for two minutes, watching her, when I was recalled to my senses by the Irishman, who said:

"Fhat are we to do wid the quinane and the gun caps?" We packed the smuggled goods in our saddle-bags and elsewhere, and rode back to headquarters. The colonel and the general were in the colonel's tent, and I took the "stuff" in and reported all the occurrences.

"But where is the lady?" inquired the general, after reading the letter and wiping his eyes.

"As we were about to start back," said I, "after taking the smuggled goods from her, she gave her horse the whip, and rode away. I had no orders to shoot a woman, and I let her go."

"Thank G.o.d," said the general. "That's the best way," said the colonel.

"She will quit smuggling and go to her children."

*Eighteen months after the lady rode away from me, "leaving"

her quinine, I was in New Orleans, to be mustered in as Second Lieutenant, having received a commsssion. I had bought me a fine uniform, and thought I was about as cunning a looking officer as ever was. I was walking on Ca.n.a.l street, looking in the windows, and finally went into a store to buy some collars. A gentleman came in with a gray uniform on, and one sleeve empty. He was evidently a Confederate officer. He asked me if I did not belong to a certain cavalry regiment, and if my name was not so and so.

I told him he was correct. He told me there was a lady in an adjoining store that wanted to see me. I did not know a soul, that is, a female soul, in New Orleans, but I went with him. Any lady that wanted to see me, in my new uniform, could see me. As we entered the store a lady left two little girls and rushed up to me, threw her arms around my neck and --(say, does a fellow have to tell everything, when he writes a war history?) Well, she was awfully tickled to see me, and she was my smuggler, the Confederate was her husband, and the children were hers. The officer was as tickled as she was, and they compelled me to go to their house to dinner, and I enjoyed it very much. We talked over the arrest of the "female smuggler," and she said to her husband, "Pa, it was an awfully embarra.s.sing situation for me and this Yankee, but he treated me like a lady, and the only thing I have to find fault about, is that he forgot to help me hook up my dress, and I rode clear to town with it unhooked." The Confederate had been discharged at the surrender, and I was on my way to Texas, to serve another year, hunting Indians.

I left them very happy, and as I went out of their door she wrapped his empty sleeve around her waist, drew the children up to her, and said, "Mr. Yankee, may you always be very happy."

CHAPTER XIII.

The Female Smuggler Episode Makes Me Famous--I am Sent Forth in Women's Clothes--My Interview with the Bad Corporal--A Fist Fight--The Rebellion is Put Down Once More--I Reveal My Ident.i.ty.

It was not twenty-four hours before the news spread all over my regiment, as well as several other regiments, that a certain corporal had captured a female smuggler, while on picket, had searched her on the spot and found a large quant.i.ty of quinine and other articles contraband of war, and there was a general desire to look upon the features of a man, not a commissioned officer who had gall enough to search a female rebel, from top to toe, without orders from the commanding officer, and I was constantly being visited by curiosity-seekers, who wanted to know all about it. Of course it was not known that I had been ordered to do as I did, and they all wondered why I was not made an example of; and many privates, corporals and sergeants wondered if they would get out of it so easily if they should do as I did. There were a great many women pa.s.sing through the lines, and I am sure many soldiers decided that the first woman who attempted to pa.s.s through would get searched.

It was talked among the men, and for a day or two a lady would certainly have stood a poor show to have rode up to a picket post with a pa.s.s to go outside. The soldiers had so long been away from female society that it would have been a picnic for them to have captured a suspicious looking woman who was pretty. I was pointed out, down town, as the man who captured the woman loaded with quinine, and women with rebel tendencies would look at me as though I was a bold, bad man that ought to be killed, and they acted as though they would like to eat me. But I tried to appear modest, and not as though I had done anything I was particularly proud of. The next evening the colonel sent for me and said he had got something for me to do that required nerve. I told him that my experience in putting down the rebellion had shown me that the whole thing required nerve. That I had been on my nerve until my nerves were pretty near used up, and I asked him if he couldn't let some of the other boys do a little of the nervous work. He said he had one more woman job that he would like to have me undertake.

I was sick of the whole woman business, and told him I did not want to be aggravated any more; that arresting women and searching them, was nothing but an aggravation, and I wanted to be let out. He said in this case I would not have to arrest anybody of the female persuasion, but that I would have to be arrested, and that it would be the greatest joke that ever was. I told him if there was any joke about it he could count me in. Then he went on to say that my success with the female smuggler had excited all the boys to emulate my deeds, and they were all laying for a female smuggler, and that he feared it wouldn't be safe for a woman to be caught on the picket line. There had got to be a stop put to it, and he and the general had thought of a scheme. He said there was a corporal in one of the companies who had made his brags that he would arrest the first female that came to his picket post, and search her for smuggled goods, and they wanted to make an example of him. He asked me if I wasn't something of a boxer, and I told him for a light weight I was considered pretty good. Then he asked me if I could ride on a side saddle. I told him I could ride anything, from a hobby to an elephant.

He said that was all right, and I would fill the bill. Then he went into details. I was to go to the town with him, and be fitted out with a riding habit of the female persuasion, false hair, side saddle, and a bustle as big as a bushel basket. That I was to ride out on a certain road, where the corporal would be on picket with two men. He would stop me, and search me, I was to cry, and beg, and all that, but finally submit to be searched, and after the corporal had got started to search me, I was to haul off and give him one "biff" in the nose, another if it was necessary to knock him down, paste one of the men in the ear, if he showed any impudence, jump on my horse and come back to town, and leave the corporal to find his mistake.

I didn't half like the idea of dressing up in such a masquering costume, but of course if I could help put down the rebellion that way, it was my duty to do it, and besides, I had a grudge against that corporal, anyway, because he called me a "jay" and a "subst.i.tute," and a "drafted man," when I came to the regiment. The colonel took me to the residence of a lady friend who rode on horseback a good deal, and as he let her into the secret, she helped fix me up. All I had to do was to remove my cavalry jacket, and she put the dress on over my head. I always supposed they put on these dresses the same as men put on pants, by walking into them feet first, but she said they went over the head.

I felt as though my pants were going to show, but she gave me some instructions about keeping the dress down, and I began to feel a good deal like a woman. The dress fit me around the waist as though it was made for me, and when it was all b.u.t.toned up in front I felt stunning.

She and the colonel made a bustle out of newspapers, and a small sofa cus.h.i.+on of eider down was placed where it would do the most good. After the dress was all fixed, she got a wig and put it on my head, and a hat, with a feather in it, and then pinned a veil on the hair, so it reached down to my rose-bud mouth. Then she took a powder arrangement and powdered my face, put on a pair of long gauntlets which she usually wore, and told me to look in the gla.s.s. When I looked into the gla.s.s I almost fainted. The deception was so good that it would have fooled the oldest man in the world.

The colonel said he was almost inclined to fall in love with me himself, and he did put his arm around me and squeeze me, but I didn't notice any particular feeling, such as I did when his lady friend was fooling around me. That was different. Well, I was an inveterate smoker at that time, so I took my pipe and a bag of tobacco, and put it in a pocket of the dress, and some matches, and we went out doors. The colonel took my tiny number eight boot in his hand and tossed me lightly into the saddle, then he mounted his own horse and we rode around the suburbs of the town, so I could get used to the side-saddle. I got him to stop behind a fence and let me have a smoke out of my pipe, and then I told him I was ready. He gave me a pa.s.s, and told me to go out on the road the corporal was on, and if he let me pa.s.s out of the lines to go on to a turn in the road, where a squad of our men were on a scout, and to report to the officer in charge, who would bring me in all right, by another road, but if the corporal attempted to search me, to do as I had been told to do. After I had knocked the corporal down, if I would give a yell, the officer who was outside would come and arrest us all and bring us to headquarters, where the colonel could reprimand the corporal, etc. I threw a kiss to the colonel and started out on the road. It was about a mile to the picket post, and I had time to reflect on my position. This was putting down the rebellion at a great rate.

I was an ostensible female, liable to be insulted at any moment, but I would maintain the dignity of my alleged s.e.x if I didn't lay up a cent.

I put on a proud, haughty look, full of purity and all that, and as I neared the picket post, I saw the corporal step out into the road, and as I came up he told me to halt. I halted, and handed him my pa.s.s, but he said it was a forgery, and ordered me to dismount. I turned on the water, from my eyes, and began to cry, but it run off the bad corporal like water off a duck.

"None of your sniveling around me," said the vile man. "Get down off that horse."

"Sir," I said, with well feigned indignation, "you would not molest a poor girl who has no one to defend her. Let me go I prithe."

I had read that, "Let me go I prithe," in a novel, and it seemed to me to be the proper thing to say, though I couldn't hardly keep from laughing.

"Prithe nothing," said the corporal. "What you got in that bustle?"

said the corporal.

"Bustle," I said, blus.h.i.+ng so you could have touched a match to my face.

"Why speak of such a thing in the presence of a lady. I want you to let me go or I shall think you are real mean, so now. Please, Mr. Soldier, let me go," and I smiled at him and winked with my left eye in a manner that ought to have paralyzed a marble statue. "O, what you giving us,"

said the vile man. "Get down off that horse and let me go through you for quinine. Do you hear?"

I was afraid if he helped me down he would see my boots or pants, which would be a give-away. So I gathered my dress in my hands and jumped down in pretty good shape. I had sparred with the corporal several times in camp, and I knew I could knock him out easy, and I made up my mind that the first indignity he offered me I would just "lam him one. It was all I could do to keep from pasting him in the nose, when I first landed on the ground, but I had a part to play, and it would not do to go off half c.o.c.ked. So I looked sad, pouted my lips, and wondered if he would kiss me, and feel the beard where I had been shaved.

"Now, shuck yourself," said he.

"Do what? I asked, with apparent alarm.

"Peel," said he, as he put his hand on my back,

"Sir," I said with my eyes flas.h.i.+ng fire, and my heart throbbing, and almost bursting with suppressed laughter, "you are insolent. I am a poor orphan, unused to contact with coa.r.s.e men. I have been raised a pet, and no vile hand has ever been laid upon me until you just touched me. If you touch me I shall scream. I shall call for help. What would you do, you wicked, naughty man."

"Unb.u.t.ton," said he as he pointed to my dress in front. "Call for help and be darned. You are a smuggler, and I know it."

"O, my G.o.d," said I, with a stage accent, "has it come to this? Am I to be robbed of all I hold dear, by a common Yankee corporal. Has a woman no rights which are to be respected? Am I to be murdered in cold bel-lud, with all my sins upon my head. O, Mr. Man, give me a moment to utter a silent prayer."

"O, hush," said he, "and hold up your hands. There ain't going to be any bel-lud. All I want is to go through you for quinine."

"Spare me, I beseech you," I said, as I held up my hands, and got in position to knock him silly the first move he made. "I am no walking drug store, I am a good girl." Around my awful form I draw an imaginary circle. "Step but one foot within that sacred circle, and on thy head I launch the cu-r-r-r-se of Rome, Georgia."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Gave a yell that could have been heard a mile 203]

"Let up on this Shakespeare, and get to busiess, said the corporal, as he reached up to my neck to unb.u.t.ton the top b.u.t.ton of my dress. He was looking at my dress, and wondering what he would find concealed within, when I brought down both fists and took him with one in each eye, with a force that would have knocked a mule down. He fell backwards, and gave a yell that could have been heard a mile. Then one of his men started for me and I knocked him in the ear, and he fell beside the corporal. The other man was going to come for his share, when the officer who had been stationed outside the lines rode up with his men and asked what was the matter. The soldier-who was not hit said I had a.s.sa.s.sinated the corporal. The officer said that was wrong, and women who would go around killing off the Union army with their fists ought to be arrested. Just then the corporal raised up on his elbow and tried to open two of the blackest eyes that ever were seen. Turning to the officer, he said:

"That woman is a smuggler, and she struck me with a brick house!

"Ancient female," said the officer, looking at me and laughing, "why do you go around like a besum of destruction, wiping out armies, one man at a time. You ought to be ashamed of myself, and you should be muzzled.

"Don't call me a female," said I, in my natural hoa.r.s.e voice. "That is something that I will not submit to."

The corporal looked up at me with one eye, the other being almost closed from the effects of the fall of the brick house. He looked as though he smelled woolen burning, as the old saying is. The officer said he guessed he would take us all to headquarters, and inquire into the affair. The corporal said that there was nothing to inquire into. That this female came along and insisted on going outside of the lines, and when he asked her, in a polite manner, to show her pa.s.s, she struck him down with a billy, or some weapon she had concealed about her person.

"You are not much of a liar, either," said I, jumping on to my horse astraddle, like a man.

The corporal looked at me as though he would sink, but he maintained that he had done nothing that should offend the most fastidious female.

The corporal and his men mounted, and we all started for headquarters. I rode beside the officer, and the corporal was right behind me. After we had got started I pulled out my pipe, filled it, lit a match as soldiers usually do, though it was quite unhandy, and began to smoke. As the tobacco smoke rolled out under my veil, from the alleged rosebud mouth, the scene was one that the corporal and the most of the men had never thought of, though the officer was "on" all right enough. The corporal could hardly believe his eyes, or one eye, for the other one had gone closed. I was a fine enough looking female as we rode through the regiment, except the pipe, which I puffed along just as though I had no dress on. As we rode up to the colonel's tent, it was noised around that a scout had captured a daring female rebel, and she had almost killed a corporal, and the whole regiment gathered around the colonel's tent.

"What is the trouble, corporal?" asked the colonel of my black-eyed friend.

"Well this woman wanted to go outside, and when I objected, she knocked me down with a rail off a fence."

"And you offered her no indignity?" the colonel asked.