True To His Colors

by Harry Castlemon

  TRUE TO HIS COLORS.

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  CHAPTER I.

  ALL ABOUT THE FLAG.

  "Rodney Gray, I am ashamed of you; and if you were not my cousin, Ishould be tempted to thrash you within an inch of your life."

  "Never mind the relationship. After listening to the sentiments you havebeen preaching in this academy for the last three months, I am moreashamed of it than you can possibly be. You're a Yankee at heart, and atraitor to your State. Let go those halliards!"

  "I'll not do it. Look here, Rodney. Your ancestors and mine have foughtunder this flag ever since it has been a flag, and, if I can help it,you shall not be the first of our name to haul it down. Let go yourself,and stand back, or I will throw you over the parapet."

  "But that flag doesn't belong up there any longer, and I say, and we allsay, that it shall not stay. Here's our banner; and if there's a warcoming, as some of you seem to think, it will lead us to victory onevery battle-field."

  An exciting scene was being enacted in and around the belfry of theBarrington Military Institute on the morning of the 9th of March, 1861;and it was but one of many similar scenes which, for some time past, hadbeen of almost daily occurrence in many parts of the South. It had beenbrought about by the efforts of a band of young secessionists, headed byRodney Gray, to haul down the academy flag, and to hoist in its place astrange banner--one that nobody had ever seen or heard of previous tothe 4th of March, the day on which Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated Presidentof the United States. The students who were gathered on the top of thetower at the time our story begins were Southern boys without exception,but they did not all believe in secession and disunion. Many of themwere loyal to the old flag, and were not ready to see it hauled down,and a strange piece of bunting run up in its place.

  Those were exciting times in our country's history, you may be sure.Rumors of war filled the air on every side. Seven States had rebelledand defied the authority of the government, and for no other reason thanbecause a man they did not like had been elected President. A newgovernment had been established at Montgomery, and formally inauguratedon the 18th of February. Jefferson Davis, President of the secededStates, had been authorized to accept the services of one hundredthousand volunteers to serve for one year, unless sooner discharged, andthey were to be mustered to "repel invasion, maintain the rightfulpossession of the Confederate States of America, and secure the publictranquillity against threatened assault." Every schoolboy who has paidany attention to his history knows that there was not the slightestexcuse for calling this immense army into existence. The disunionleaders repeatedly declared that Northern men would not fight, and theyseemed to have good grounds for thinking so; for, although Fort Sumterwas surrounded by hostile batteries, no attempt had been made to sendsupplies to Major Anderson and the gallant fellows who were shut up inthe fort with him, and more than five weeks passed after the formationof the Confederate government before President Lincoln called forseventy-five thousand militia to "suppress unlawful combinations, and tocause the laws to be duly executed." But this unnecessary act of theConfederate Provisional Congress had just the effect it was intended tohave. It "fired the Southern heart," and immediately every man, woman,and boy "took sides." The papers had just brought the glorious news toBarrington, and the students at the military academy were in a state ofintense excitement over it.

  Even at this late day there are boys--bright fellows, too--who believethat when the war broke out every one who lived in the South was arebel; but this was by no means the case. The South was divided againstitself, and so was the North. Horace Greeley, in his "Recollections of aBusy Life," tells us that in the beginning there were not more than halfa million "Simon-pure" secessionists to be found among the five millionsand more of whites who lived south of Mason and Dixon's line. Of coursesubsequent events, like the War and Emancipation proclamations, added tothis number; but even at the end there were Union-loving peoplescattered all through the seceded States, and they clung to theirprinciples in spite of everything, fighting the conscript officers, andresisting all the efforts that were made to force them into the rebelarmy. The Confederates called these plucky men and boys traitors,although they denied that they were traitors themselves. They hated themwith an undying hatred, and when they captured them with arms in theirhands, as Forrest captured the garrison at Fort Pillow, they made shortwork with them.

  If it is true that a majority of the Southern people believed that aState had the right to withdraw from the Union when things were notmanaged in a satisfactory way, it is equally true that there was a partyin the North who held the same opinion. They said, "Let the erringsisters go" if they want to, and declared that "Whenever anyconsiderable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to go out,we shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep it in." Thesewere the rabid Abolitionists, who were perfectly willing that the nationshould be destroyed rather than that it should continue to existhalf-slave and half-free. One of their leaders, who afterward became aUnion general, declared, "If slavery is the condition of the perpetuityof the Union, let the Union _slide,_" for slavery must in no case beallowed to continue. The Southern planters wanted that their "peculiarinstitution" should be taken into the territories, while theAbolitionists demanded that it should be blotted out altogether; and tothese two parties we are indebted for our four years' war.

  There was still another secession party on both sides of the line, whothought the government had no power to keep the Southern States in theUnion if they did not want to stay, and that if allowed to go in peacethey would soon get tired of trying to manage their own affairs, anddrift back into the Union of their own free will. It was better that theUnion should be peacefully sundered than that there should be a warabout it. But another party said that such talk was treason; that theConstitution was ordained to establish a "more perfect Union," which wasto be "perpetuated"; that no State, or combination of States, had anyright to try to break up the government because they could no longer runthings to suit themselves; and that there was not room enough foranother flag on this Continent. This was the good old Union party, andfortunately it was resolute enough and strong enough to run the starrybanner up to the masthead and keep it there. This was what Marcy Gray, aNorth Carolina boy, had done on this particular morning on the roof ofthe Barrington Military Institute, and he had done it, too, in spite ofall the efforts his cousin, Rodney Gray, backed by nearly all the youngrebels in the school, had made to prevent it. Ever since the day onwhich the news came that South Carolina had passed the ordinance ofsecession, that flag, which up to this time had been raised and loweredonly at certain hours, had been a bone of contention. For long years ithad floated over the academy, and no one had ever had a word to sayagainst it; but the moment it became known that one of the SouthernStates had decided that she would not stay in the Union if Mr. Lincolnwas to rule over it, there was a great change in the feelings of thestudents regarding that piece of bunting. What an excitement there wason the morning of the 21st of December, when Rodney Gray rushed into thehall with his Charleston _Mercury_ in his hand!

  "Hurrah for plucky little South Carolina!" he shouted, striking up awar-dance and flourishing the paper over his head. "Listen to this,fellows: 'The Union is dissolved. Passed at 1:15 P.M., December 20,1860, an ordinance to dissolve the Union existing between the State ofSouth Carolina and other States united with her under the compactentitled "The Constitution of the United States of America."' There itis in black and white. She's out, and of course all the other CottonStates will go with her. The Stars and Stripes have been pulled down inthe city of Charleston, and the State flag is flying over all the publicbuildings. Let's follow their example, and haul that flag down from thetower. Come on, Marcy."

  These two boys, Rodney and Marcy Gray, were very popular among theirfellows, and had been looked up to as leaders ever since they arrived atthe dignity of memberships in
the first class and company. They werecousins, and both were Southern born. Marcy was a "Tarheel," because hecame from North Carolina, and Rodney was called a "Pelican," Louisianabeing his native State.

  Rodney's father was a rich sugar-planter who did not want to haveanything to do with Northern men, some of whom would have taken hisslaves from him if they had possessed the power, and thus deprived himof the means of working his fine plantation; and it was natural that hisonly son should follow in his lead. Rodney believed in State Rights, andpreached his doctrines as often as he could find any one willing tolisten to him. His Cousin Marcy had no father (he was lost at sea whenthe boy and his older brother, Jack, were quite young), and he believedas his mother did--that slavery was wrong, that the Union was right, andthat those who wanted to destroy it were fanatics who did not know whatthey were about. But Marcy was not a passive Unionist. On the day SouthCarolina began threatening secession, he declared that she ought to bewhipped into submission; and he had never ceased to proclaim hisprinciples in spite of the lowering looks he saw and the threats heheard on every side. The boys declared that they would send him toCoventry; that is, withdraw from all fellowship with him; but when theycame to try it, they found to their surprise and disgust, that theywould have to go back on more than half the school, for some of the bestboys in it promptly sided with Marcy. The latter had many friends, andthe Union sentiment was strong in the academy; but on the morning thatRodney Gray read the extract from the Charleston _Mercury,_ showing thatSouth Carolina had made no idle threat when she threatened to secede ifshe could not have her own way, then the real test came. Many of theboys were astonished and shocked, for they had never believed thatthings would come to such a pass. The mail having just been distributed,they all had papers, but they did not stop to read them after listeningto those ominous headlines. They shoved them into their pockets and wentslowly out of the building, while Rodney and his fellows, who werealmost beside themselves with exultation and excitement, made a rush forthe stairs that led to the tower. On the way Rodney stopped to exchangea few words with his cousin.

  "You didn't think it would come, did you?" he exclaimed, walking up toMarcy and snatching away the paper on which the latter's eyes werefastened. "But you see it has, don't you? It seems that those furiousthreats about secession were not all talk, don't it? But seriously,Marcy, I know you stand where every other Southern boy stands, and thatyou are with us heart and soul. All I ask of you is to say so. Why don'tyou speak? Which side are you on, any way?"

  But Marcy did not utter a word. Although he looked straight at hiscousin he did not appear to know that Rodney was talking to him, for hismind was busy with other matters.

  "Tell him you're neutral," suggested Dick Graham, whose home was inMissouri, and whom we may meet again under different circumstances."That's what I am going to be, for I don't think my State will follow inSouth Carolina's lead."

  "But I am not neutral." replied Marcy, arousing himself at last. "I amfor the Union all over, and I'm sorry we haven't a Jackson in Washingtonat this moment to say that it must and shall be preserved. I hopeBuchanan will send ships enough into Charleston harbor to blow thatmiserable State out of water."

  "Let him try it, and see how quickly the other Cotton States will arm tohelp her," exclaimed Bob Cole, who was one of Rodney's friends andfollowers. "Coerce a sovereign State? The President can't do it. TheConstitution does not give him the power."

  Bob Cole did not know it, and neither did any of the other boys who werestanding around listening to his fiery words, but that was the veryargument the frightened chief magistrate was going to put forth in hisnext message to Congress.

  "The President will only make a bad matter worse if he tries any foolthing like that," continued Bob, who, like most of the boys of thatsection of the country, had heard these matters discussed so often thathe had them at his tongue's end. "I tell you that the events ofyesterday are an entering wedge. We are tired of the company of thoseYankees up North, and now we are going to get rid of them and have agovernment of our own; see if we don't. Why should we not? The people upthere do not belong to the same race we do. They are regicides andRoundheads--plodding, stingy folks, in whose eyes a dollar looks as bigas a cart-wheel. The race who settled Virginia and scattered all overthese Southern States, were cavaliers and money spenders, and theirdescendants are the same. We've wanted to get rid of them ever since1830, and now we are going to do it. Patrick Henry warned us againstforming a partnership with them in the first place."

  "Whom do you mean by us and we?" demanded Marcy, who had listened insilence to this speech, which was addressed to the boys gathered in thehall rather than to himself. "You don't live in South Carolina."

  "No, but I do," said Ed Billings, elbowing his way to the foot of thestairs on which Bob had perched himself when he began his address. "I gowith my State, and you will have to go with yours or show yourself atraitor."

  "A traitor to what?" inquired Marcy.

  "To your State," Billings almost shouted.

  "My State hasn't seceded yet; but if she does, and I go with her, howwill I stand in regard to the old flag--the one that waves over thisacademy?"

  Billings tried to answer, but his voice was drowned in the wild shoutsthat arose from the assembled students.

  "Haul the flag down!" they yelled, almost as one boy.

  "No, no," cried some of the more reasonable ones, after they had takentime to think twice. "Let's wait upon the colonel and request him tohave it taken down."

  "There's one thing I want you all to bear in mind," added a tall fellow,who hearing the tumult in the hall had come back to see what it was allabout. "Those colors shall not come down without the colonel's orders,and I'll mix up promiscuous with any chap who lays an ugly hand uponthem."

  So it seemed that the old flag had defenders even here; and although itmay not have had a very sincere friend in the person of the head of theschool, he positively refused to order it down, or to permit thestudents to pull it down. It would be time enough to attend to that whenthey learned what the State was going to do. The boys went awaydisappointed; but the most of them believed that the day would come whenthey could work their sweet will with that "emblem of tyranny," as theyhad already begun to call it.

  From that time forward there were none in all the length and breadth ofthe land who kept a closer watch upon passing events than did the threehundred students of the Barrington military academy; but it is aquestion whether they did not imbibe a great many false ideas along withthe news they read. The Southern press never did deal fairly with itsreaders. All dispatches favorable to the secessionists and their causewere published, as a matter of course; but those that were not favorablewere either suppressed entirely, or distorted out of all semblance tothe truth. They began this course in the early days of the Confederacyand kept it up to the end, one of their generals forging a telegraphdispatch, in which he announced that he had won a great battle, duringwhich he killed and captured twenty thousand Federals, and destroyedfour of Porter's gunboats.

  For three months the flag that floated over the academy held its place.Persevering and daring attempts were made to steal it at night, but theywere every one frustrated by the vigilance and courage of the boys whohad not yet lost all love for it, and for the memory of those whosedeeds it commemorated. When the colonel announced that he would takecharge of the bunting at night the Union boys thought it would be insafe hands; but it turned out afterward that they were mistaken.

  The tension of brain and nerve to which the students were subjectedduring the next few weeks was something to wonder at, and every dayadded to their suspense and anxiety. South Carolina sent commissionersto other States, urging them to join her in the secession movement, andone of them shouted to the citizens of Georgia: "Buy arms, and throw thebloody spear into the den of the assassins and incendiaries, and Goddefend the right!" But Stephens said in reply: "I tell you frankly thatthe election of a man constitutionally chosen president is notsufficient cause for any Sta
te to separate from the Union." And yet in avery few weeks this same Alexander H. Stephens was vice-president of theConfederacy. Mississippi went out of the Union first, and othersfollowed, until there were seven of them to organize a new governmentunder a new flag. Then it was that the first open attempt was made tohaul the old banner down from the academy flag-staff; but it waspromptly met, and although Rodney Gray and his followers had beenreinforced by nearly all the students belonging to the seceded States,the Union boys were strong enough to drive them down stairs, through thehall, and out of the building. They tried to be as good-natured as theycould about it, but there were a few fights that took place before thepeaceable ones could interfere, and the result was that Rodney Gray andsome others found themselves in the guard-house. But they were neverbrought to trial, for, after that, events came thick and fast, and therigid discipline to which the students had hitherto been subjected wasso greatly relaxed, that it was a wonder the school held together aslong as it did. Before the Confederate Congress adjourned it passed theact of which we have spoken, authorizing President Davis to accept theservices of one hundred thousand one year's men, and then the excitementwas at fever heat.

  This act was passed on the 7th of March, and on the evening of the nextday the papers brought the news of it to Barrington. There was also oneother act of the Confederate Congress which excited some comment, but,with the exception of Rodney Gray, no one at the academy gave it asecond thought. When you hear what that act was, and what Rodney didabout it, you will perhaps realize how very much in earnest thedisunionists were, and how their unreasonable hostility toward those whodid not believe as they did led them to forget their manhood, and dothings they would not have dreamed of in their sane and sober moments.

  The same mail that brought these papers brought also several mysteriouspackages, each of which contained an article that none of the Barringtonpeople had ever seen before. One of them was addressed to Rodney Gray.He ran the guard and went to the post-office after it; or, rather, heclimbed the fence in full view of the sentry, who turned his back andwalked off without making any effort to stop him. The thing he found inthat package was what brought on the fight between him and Marcy, towhich reference was made at the beginning of this chapter.