Raiding With Morgan

by Jim R. Woolard

  “I’ll see him hanged or kill him myself,” Ty answered vehemently.

  “Ty, let’s set things straight. The Yankees won’t hang him, unless he confesses, which is not likely to happen. We have no witnesses that saw him shoot Owen. You didn’t see him do it, and when I got there, he’d already disappeared into that mad scramble of wagons and vehicles and horsemen fleeing the blue bellies. Even if we did have witnesses, think about it, why should the Yankees care if a secesh trooper killed one of his own in the heat of battle? On the other hand, you murder Jack Stedman’s son or kill him in a fair fight, either way they’ll gladly make an example of you and hang you in front of the entire garrison.”

  In the ensuing silence, Shannon could practically hear gears spinning inside Ty’s mind. He knew what was coming. The keen edge in Ty’s voice deepened. “I’ll see him dead, one way or another, and they can bury me with him. I’ll keep a stranglehold on the bastard’s throat till the Lord or the Devil, I don’t care which, pries my fingers loose.”

  Lieutenant Shannon took a deep breath. Any objection on his part to what Ty was proposing was pointless. Owen Mattson had made life-endangering decisions with the same kind of rock-hard conviction that ruled out waffling, self-doubt, and recrimination. The Mattson bones of fate had been cast upon the blanket, and they weren’t to be touched again, period.

  “Ty, did he recognize you?”

  “I doubt it. He was in a heap of hurry to keep from wetting himself in front of everybody.”

  “That’s good. He’s a coward and a back shooter. He figures you know who he is, he might swallow the dog—take the Union Loyalty Oath—and agree to fight the western Indians with the Yankees. And if he does, he’s beyond our reach faster than the flare of a dying match.”

  Shannon squeezed Ty’s forearm. “I want Stedman’s bushwhacking turd of a son to pay the piper as much as you. Promise me, you won’t seek him out without talking with me first. I’ll back you, but I want a chance to tell you if I think you’re taking the wrong path. Then I’ll step aside. I won’t try to stop you.”

  It was an offer Ty didn’t dare refuse. He was fully aware he lacked the rough-and-tumble fighting experience of his father and Shawn Shannon. He’d participated in two full-blown horseback charges, firing with his pistol from the saddle. Never had he engaged another man, blow for blow, to the death as they had. In close quarters, he was an amateur with gun, knife, and fist.

  “How would you go about it?”

  Rubbing his cheek with a knuckle, a relieved Shawn Shannon thought a long moment, then said, “First we learn as much as we can about him. I’m acquainted with the Rebel master sergeants responsible for each of the barracks. I have a hunch our man is like a bear with a sore paw dealing with enlisted men and a handful of grief for his master sergeant. I’ll ask about him as one officer talking to another. Then we’ll talk again. How’s that—”

  A rough growl arose by the boiler. “I hear any more chatter, we’ll fall out and sit bare-assed in the snow till it melts beneath you.”

  The Yankee officer’s threat echoed through the barrack and captured the ear of every prisoner. The long room grew quiet—so still that Ty swore he heard one of the prisoners bunking below him gulp. Not a single Rebel wanted to endure that particular punishment a second time. The weather ten days past had been right balmy compared to the howling New Year’s Eve blizzard that continued to breach the walls and roof of the barracks. Thawing out a pair of frostbitten haunches was a unique agony, one that made the toughest of men well up and cry.

  Shawn Shannon shushed Ty with a finger against his lips. Shooed away from the boiler by the guards, jovial Ebb White joined them and the trio rolled into the blankets for the night.

  Still wound up, Ty lay awake long after his bunkmates were asleep and snoring. He prayed devising a plan to confront Jack Stedman’s son wouldn’t prove as frustrating as another endeavor of his had been, to date. The sighting of the White Oak Square Post Office as he passed through the camp gate the first time five months ago had squelched temporarily the dread of his coming imprisonment and thrilled him to the bone. He soon learned mail and packages were delivered daily from all points of the compass, north and south, and that the post office sold postage, paper, and pencil to those prisoners with the necessary funds. But the cost of postage for a single letter—three cents in Federal stamps and ten cents in Confederate—and that of paper and pencil seemed an insurmountable sum to a penniless prisoner such as Ty. The post office did forward outgoing mail minus the Confederate stamps, leaving the collection of the ten cents due to the final post office delivering it to the addressee. So, for want of three 1-cent Federal stamps and paper and pencil, Ty was against the wall when it came to writing letters.

  Shawn Shannon kept him from becoming a beggar. When he asked Ty with a devilish glint in his eye if there wasn’t someone, anyone he wanted to write to—and learned of Ty’s impoverished state—postage, paper, and pencil were quickly in Ty’s hands at the cost of a conspiratorial wink from the lieutenant.

  Ty seated himself at one of the long wooden dining tables, laid a sheath of blank business forms looted from the various blue-belly towns the raiders had visited to use for stationery, wet the tip of his pencil, and discovered he didn’t have the foggiest notion how best to write to Dana Bainbridge.

  Every opening line he pondered sounded immature or presumptive. He sat thinking far too long. His courage deserted him and he decided to contact Boone Jordan, instead. Maybe she had written a note or letter to Mr. Jordan in the meantime that showed a desire on her part to stay in touch and perhaps help him determine his status with her. Was he a wounded veteran deserving of her friendship and kindness, or was he a potential lover and husband?

  He felt like a coward as he wrote:

  15 October 1863

  Dear Mr. Jordan:

  Having been captured at Buffington Island, I am imprisoned at Camp Douglas outside Chicago, Illinois. I wish to inform you that Father was shot and killed during the battle, not by the enemy but by one of our own men. His loss cannot be measured. The same assassin wounded me. I recovered except for the limp in my left leg.

  Despite what has transpired since we parted company, you have my eternal thanks for helping me run off and meet Father. I will be a bigger, better man, though I shared his life for only a short time. He was all I hoped for in a father and much, much more. He made me proud of my heritage and showed me by example how a true man comports himself.

  I swear I will survive the war and make him proud of me.

  Lieutenant Shawn Shannon, the officer that kept me from bleeding to death and saw to Father’s proper burial, shares my barrack. He is cut from the same cloth as Father and watches out for me when he can.

  In closing, you may receive a letter addressed to me from Miss Dana Bainbridge, of Portland, Ohio. If you do, please forward it at your first opportunity.

  Best regards, your friend,

  Ty Mattson

  P. S. I pray nightly that Grandfather will see fit to forgive me.

  Cautioned by Sam Bryant that Yankee clerks censored every word of outgoing letters, Ty avoided any mention of the progress of the war in the South or the miserable conditions at Camp Douglas. Prisoners could ask relatives and friends to ship them clothing, food items, and monies, with no guarantee against the guards stealing a portion for themselves. Some prisoners complained that jealous and nosy clerks kept their sweetheart’s love letters from them. Ebb White summed up the mail situation in his succinct fashion, “Put stamps on your letter and hope for the best. How else can we reach beyond the stockade?”

  Then the waiting had started for Ty. He hated standing in long lines during mail call, but it did give purpose to his countless, idle hours, since he was not good at chess, hated checkers, and quickly read what few books his fellow prisoners had received from home. Daily Chicago newspapers purchased from the civilian sutlers by Cally Smith and Sam Bryant augmented the holdings of a barrack library with but two short she
lves. The marble and candy enterprises of the Smith and Bryant families had continued to be profitable, despite the war, and their parents and numerous relatives became a steady source for hard candy, dried fruit, tobacco, cigars, and other treats. With delivery from Lexington and Georgetown, Kentucky, requiring only three days, packages arrived at Camp Douglas for Cally and Sam at regular intervals.

  As the weeks slid by, the short mail delivery time between Kentucky and Chicago nibbled at Ty’s patience more each day. Had something happened to Boone Jordan? Not being a young man, had he perhaps passed away? Or had he fallen ill and become bedridden? Mr. Boone was a bachelor, with no siblings, and his last blood relatives, his aunt and uncle, were deceased. That left Old Joe, who was illiterate and would not think of checking for mail at the post office without instructions.

  Ty stewed and fretted morning, noon, and night. Still hesitant to write directly to Dana Bainbridge, he duplicated his letter to Mr. Jordan from memory, again cursing his lack of intestinal fortitude with each scratch of his pencil, and sent it off. If Mr. Jordan failed to respond by Thanksgiving, he vowed to bite the bullet, fire off a short note to Dana—for a long letter was too frightening to undertake—and learn the truth of his situation with her. He was teetering on the brink of a sheer cliff.

  It was all in or nothing before he lost his mind.

  CHAPTER 23

  A few days later, Shawn Shannon had pulled Ty tight against the rear wall of the barrack, where the other prisoners milling about couldn’t overhear them. “Lad, I’m not faulting you for being moonstruck over that Bainbridge gal. You walking about with your head down and chin dragging the ground snapping at anyone that comes near you, I won’t tolerate. You get real love foggy and speak to a guard that way, you’ll end up riding the ‘Mule’ or worse. Are you listening to me?”

  The bluntness of Shawn Shannon’s query straightened Ty’s backbone. He avoided Shawn’s probing gaze, shamed by how far into the doldrums he’d fallen. Without appearing like a whining weakling, he wasn’t quite sure how to tell the lieutenant that it wasn’t just his unfulfilled infatuation with Dana that had squashed his spirits.

  The monotony of prison life was almost unbearable. Every day was the same. Roll call was one hour after the sunrise bugle blew. Providing no prisoner was late or failed to respond to the calling of his name, prisoners were dismissed for breakfast. With the slightest infraction, the entire prisoner population stood in line without moving in fair weather, rain, and snow for as long as their captors saw fit—sometimes for up to three hours.

  Once the roll call was completed to Yankee satisfaction, the prisoners cleaned the camp barracks and policed the grounds. They then had one hour for breakfast. The first fatigue of the day commenced at eight o’clock when assignments ranging from the digging of ditches for new waterlines, extending the height of the stockade, or emptying the soil boxes of the sinks were given to the prisoners. Recall at twelve o’clock preceded dinner by thirty minutes. The afternoon fatigue reported at one o’clock and lasted until the five o’clock recall for supper. Lights went out with the seven o’clock bugle.

  The unvarying daily routine, coupled with constant confinement in an enclosed area under guard around the clock, bored and unnerved Ty to where he had to fight the urge to scream aloud and take his frustration out on the smirking guards, no matter the consequences. Before Camp Douglas, he would have scoffed at the suggestion a man could feel lonely and isolated if like-minded peers surrounded him. One glance at the seventeen-foot-high stockade, with its guard towers, dispelled that notion double-quick.

  Nattily dressed male and female Chicago citizens gawking and pointing at Rebel prisoners on weekends from a high platform built for them outside the stockade wall reinforced Ty’s gloom. Hearing their tinny laughter made him feel like a striped monkey in a cage wearing a dunce cap.

  Shawn Shannon clasped Ty’s shoulder. “Lad, are you listening to me?” he repeated.

  Ty blinked and nodded. “I am now, sir.”

  “Then get your head up and keep it up. You may have forgotten you’re an officer. Well, I haven’t, and I expect you to conduct yourself accordingly. Wherever we are, we set the example for others to follow. We don’t mope about like tarred and feathered dogs. Not a single Morgan man is ready to admit he’s been defeated in spirit or the flesh. We’ll either escape or walk out of here with our heads held high when the fighting stops. I don’t know which way it will be, or when it will happen, but it will. That’s what I want you thinking about every waking minute. That’s what will see you through, not your pining away in a stupor while you wait for a letter that may never come. Put this thought under your hat for safekeeping—You have no chance with her at all if you finish the war in a pine box. Are we on the same page now, Corporal?”

  Shawn Shannon’s lecture jerked Ty from his doldrums and changed his demeanor and behavior in a hurry. It was as if his dead father had spoken to him. During the day, he hid his innermost feelings behind a smile and make-do attitude, showed due respect to the guards, and volunteered to help Private Pursley in the kitchen. He enjoyed that chore, though his ears did suffer for a fortnight when the white-goateed cook exploded in a fit of profanity after a rumor floated through the barrack that come winter the boilers would be used for cooking instead of stoves to save on firewood.

  The red of E.J.’s cheeks matched that of a male cardinal. Without his cursing missing a beat, he slung cookware about in frenzies that endangered the unwary. Shawn Shannon took mercy on the entire barrack by dousing E.J.’s ire with a promise that greasing the palms of the guards could keep his stove burning indefinitely. No one was certain Shawn’s promise would hold water, but in the humble opinion of all who dined at Private Pursley’s table, the ensuing peace and quiet qualified Lieutenant Shawn Shannon for sainthood in a faith of his choice. If there was an upside to E.J.’s carrying on so, he had given everyone within earshot a new definition of the word “pride.”

  At night, Ty stayed as still as possible between Shawn Shannon and Ebb White. It was then he let his longings off their daytime leash and prayed without uttering a sound. He prayed Dana would write soon. He prayed Boone Jordan was in good health and had received his letters. And Ty prayed that the livery owner would decide on his own to inform his grandfather that he was alive. The guilt Ty felt for abandoning Enoch Mattson in the cold-blooded way he had was growing in his gut faster than spring mushrooms.

  Ty’s self-imposed deadline of Thanksgiving descended upon him quickly. Thanksgiving was a Federal holiday the Confederacy did not officially observe. Nonetheless, it proved an exciting week for Ty. The day before the holiday, Wednesday, 25 November 1863, a date he never forgot, he at last heard his name during mail call. A quick glance at the return address told him the letter was from Mr. Boone. He distanced himself from those remaining in line, in order to claim a little privacy, and, with pulse thumping, opened the envelope. Did it contain a letter from Dana Bainbridge?

  The envelope held only a note from Boone Jordan. Ty’s keen disappointment was offset by the knowledge that he had successfully contacted the forwarding point for mail he had given Dana. Half the line of communication between Portland, Ohio, and Chicago was open.

  The delicate script of Boone Jordan’s note puzzled Ty until he started reading:

  15 November 1863

  Dear Ty:

  Forgive me for not answering sooner. I suffered a black spell and was abed for some weeks. The spell numbed my fingers, and when I could move about, I had to search out Mrs. Kincaid from across the alley to pen my note.

  I was saddened by the news of Owen’s death. At the same time, I’m happy you spent a few weeks with him. I hope your leg is better. I have not received any letters to be forwarded to you.

  If you need money, food, clothing, anything, and can receive those items, please advise. I will have Old Joe check the post office every other day.

  Your friend,

  Boone Jordan

  Suppertime was near and he ret
urned to his barrack as fast as the thick, shoe-clinging mud of White Oak Square allowed. He had serious thinking to do before lights-out. Though he had finally heard from Mr. Jordan, did he want to write to Dana, anyway?

  He had learned Shawn Shannon and Given Campbell wouldn’t hesitate. They lived by the creed that when the opportunity arose to make an attractive female aware of your interest, do so straight out. Fuss and fume like backward Ty and you chanced losing her to a bolder man. If a man’s intentions were rebuffed, he need remember that maybe the next gal would be interested and perhaps even prettier.

  What had initially appeared as selfish and ungentlemanly behavior on the part of Shawn and Given, which defied proper decorum and ignored female sensitivities, was appealing more to Ty every minute. Pining away through the night for a female who might well be glad she was free of the nursing demands his care had placed on her, and the disruption he had brought to her home, had him dreading lights-out.

  A step from the door of his barrack, he decided to take the plunge. He was sick of being an embarrassment to himself. He would write to her yet today, if that were possible. But E.J. Pursley had another chore lined up for his assistant cook, and it precluded any letter writing on the eve of Thanksgiving.

  A barrel of sugar had been delivered to the barracks, instead of a barrel of flour. Sugar being a scarce commodity, the resulting excitement had the entire barrack in an uproar. Ty was escorted to the kitchen. The door opened a crack. He was shoved inside and the door locked behind him.

  Flour-smudged apron tied about his waist, Ebb White was rolling pie dough on the center table. E.J. was stirring a big pot on the six-oven stove. He beckoned to Ty and said, “Over here. Grab a pan and make a flour and water slurry like I taught you.”

  “What are we making?”

  “Vinegar pie, the delicacy those boys out there crave after their corn bread, and since there’s no meal to be had for corn bread, they’re a tad worked up.”