Back Aa

Lincoln Conscript

<h2>CHAPTER IV THE DRAFTED COPPERHEAD</h2> Would he dare to tell his father about the draft? The question kept repeating itself in Bob Bannister’s mind, and the answer to it grew more and more uncertain as he drew nearer to his home. Already he could see the gabled roof of the house, and, back of it, dimly outlined against the gray sky, the white blades of the windmill, free from their lashing, whirling swiftly in the rising wind. The windmill did the work of three men for Rhett Bannister. It sawed his wood, pumped his water, churned his milk, threshed his grain, and drove the machinery by which he manufactured his stock in trade. A few years before the beginning of the war he had secured a patent on a design for a beehive, ingeniously adapted to the instinct of the bees, and so arranged as to[78] make their product removable quickly, easily, and at any time. His success in the manufacture and sale of these hives had been so great that for a time he was quite unable to supply the demand for them. Then the war came, and with it, and as a consequence of it, his ever-growing unpopularity; and, almost before he knew it, his business had so fallen away that it became necessary for him to dismiss his hired help, and he himself had little to do save to manufacture and store his product in hope of better times. Indeed, for the last few weeks the whir of the wheel had been an unusual sound, and Bob wondered as he drew near, that it should be going on this day, especially at so late an hour. So, instead of stopping at the house, he went straight on to the shop entrance, to discover, if possible, the cause of this unwonted activity. At the bench, in the gloom, he saw his father, fashioning, with the power-saw, a heavy block of wood into the form of a brace. The man did not look up from his[79] work as the boy entered; perhaps he did not hear him come. “I’m back, father,” said Bob; “I saw the windmill going and I came on over here.” “Yes; you’re late. What kept you?” “Why, nothing in particular.” “Were there any letters?” Then Bob remembered that in his eagerness to hear the discussion concerning the Emancipation Proclamation, in his excitement over the reading of the draft-list, and in his haste to get away after his father’s name had been announced, he had forgotten to inquire for his mail. “Why, I—didn’t get the mail,” he stammered. “I—I—didn’t ask for it.” “Why not?” The man laid down his work, slipped the belt from the pulley, and turned toward Bob. “Because—” replied the boy, “because I wanted to get away.” “Mean again to you, were they? Small,[80] contemptible spirits! How tyranny in high places is always imitated by the mob!” “Not so much that, father; but—there was news.” “Oh, news. I see. Was the conscription-list in?” “A special messenger brought it.” “And did you see it? or hear it read?” “Adam Johns read it out loud.” And then there was silence between them. The man could not quite condescend to ask for the desired information; the boy could not quite bring himself to the point of volunteering it. So they stood there in the gathering darkness, speechless. Over their heads the great wheel creaked and whirred. And each knew, in his heart, that the other knew that Rhett Bannister’s name was on the list of drafted men. Out in the road there was the noise of wagon-wheels going by, mingled with the talking of men. And then, above the rattle of the wheels, above the creaking and groaning of the windmill, above the howling[81] of the wind, came the voice of one shouting:— “Rhett Bannister—you copperhead—you’re drafted—thank God!” That was all. The voices were again silent. The wagon passed on, the whir and wheeze of the windmill never ceased. In the darkness Bob could not see his father’s face, but he knew as well how it looked as though the sun of midday shone on it. And then, involuntarily, from his own lips came the confirmation:— “Father, it is true.” But Rhett Bannister did not reply. He stood there in the darkness, dimly outlined, immovable. Still the wheel went round, faster and faster in the driving wind, and the boughs of the maples, bending and springing in the gale, swept and scraped against the eaves of the work-shop. Then the doorway was darkened by another figure. Bob’s mother, peering into the gloom, called out:— “Rhett, dear, are you there?” [82] “Yes, Mary.” “Rob hasn’t come yet.” “Yes, mother, I’m here too.” “I’m so glad! What was it those men shouted, Rhett? Does it mean any harm to you?” “I hope not, Mary. It was just some wild zealot echoing the sentiment of his crazy masters, that’s all. We’ll go in to supper now.” As he spoke, Bannister pulled the lever that clamped the wheel, and the whirring and grinding ceased. Then he locked the shop-door and they all went down the path to the house. At the supper-table the subject of the draft was not mentioned. But, later in the evening, after Bob’s sister had gone to bed, and a wood-fire had been lighted in the fireplace, for it had grown suddenly cold, Rhett Bannister chose to inform his wife of the situation. Try as he might to prevent it, the social blight which had fallen on him covered her also with its sinister darkness.[83] Her heart was deeply troubled. She passed her days in anxiety and her nights in fear. She knew little of the deep undercurrents of political passion and of fratricidal strife that were undermining the bed-rock of the nation. She knew only that she trusted her husband and believed in him, and was ready to endure any suffering for his sake. And while, always, he sought to protect and comfort her, even to the extent of keeping from her knowledge such matters as would give her unnecessary anxiety or alarm, still there were times when he thought she ought, for the sake of all of them, to know what was happening. And to-night was one of those times. “Sit here, Mary,” he said. “Let’s talk over this matter of the draft. That rowdy shouted, and Robert confirms the report, that I have been drafted. That means that I shall have to go and fight in the ranks of the Union armies, whether I will or no.” “O Rhett! Do you mean that you have[84] to go as Charley Hitchner did, and John Strongmeyer?” “Yes, only they were drafted by the state. The government at Washington chooses to take me.” “But what shall I do without you? If they knew how impossible it is for you to go and leave me alone, they wouldn’t make you do it, I’m sure.” “Yes, dear. The privations and sufferings of wives and children are not considered. The administration at Washington needs men to carry on this unholy war, and wives may starve and babies may die, but the war must go on. There, Mary, never mind,” as the tears came into the woman’s eyes, “I haven’t gone yet. Perhaps I’ll not go. A man’s house is his castle, you know. They’ll have hard work to take me if I choose to stay. Well, Rob, who else was drafted? You heard the list read.” “Yes, father, Adam Johns read it. His own name was the first one on it.” [85] “Ah! poor old Mrs. Johns. She idolizes that boy.” “And must Adam Johns go to war?” inquired Mrs. Bannister, anxiously. “Yes, mother,” replied Bob. “He said he would go. He said he was sorry he had waited for the draft. And Henry Bradbury said he would take care of Adam’s mother. And a lot more said so too.” “Oh, well!” rejoined Bannister, “such obligations rest lightly on the consciences of those who make them after the excitement and passion have died out. Poor Anna Johns will have to look out for herself if her boy goes. And if he dies, God help her! Who else were drawn, Robert?” “Why, Elias Traviss. They said he would pay his three hundred dollars exemption money, though, and stay home; that he could well afford to do it.” “Yes,” said Bannister, bitterly, “there lies the iniquity of the whole proceeding. The rich man may buy his release from service with money; the poor man must pay[86] the price with his body, his blood, his life, perhaps. It’s barbarous; it’s inhuman!” Then, all in a moment, Mary Bannister grasped the idea of purchased exemption. “Why, Rhett!” she exclaimed, “you have that money in the bank, you know. If they come for you, you can pay them the three hundred dollars and stay at home, the same as Elias Traviss is going to do. Can’t he, Robbie?” “Yes, mother, or hire a substitute the same as ’Squire Matthews did.” “So you won’t have to go, Rhett, you see, even if you are drafted. And we can well afford the money.” Bannister looked from his wife to his son, and back again, with a smile of pity on his lips for their simplicity. But there was no anger in his voice as he replied:— “That is true, Mary. Doubtless I could purchase immunity from the draft with money. But my money would be used by me to buy a substitute, or by the government for the purposes of the war, and the[87] moral guilt on my part would be even greater than though I went myself. No, I shall not purchase my release, nor shall I go to war. There are means of defending my rights and my person against this tyranny, and I shall exercise them. I may die in the attempt, but I shall not have it charged against my memory that I fought my brothers of the South with bayonet and rifle, or helped others to do it.” In his excitement, he rose from his chair and paced up and down the floor, but, in a moment, growing calmer, he added:— “Oh, well! they haven’t come for me yet. Let’s not borrow trouble. We’ll have it soon enough. Keep a stout heart, Mary. And we’ll all go to bed now and sleep away our cares.” It was all very well for Rhett Bannister to speak thus lightly of sleeping away cares, but as for his poor wife, she lay half the night, dreading lest the next noise she should hear might be Lincoln’s soldiers come to take away her husband to what[88] both he and she considered a cruel, causeless war. Nor did sleep come quickly to close Bob’s eyes. Never before had the conflict between parental love and duty and his exalted sense of patriotism been so fierce and strong. Yet, reason with himself as he would, he was not able to convince either his heart or his judgment that his father was right and that Abraham Lincoln was wrong. And as the great War President expounded his thought on the crisis to the American people, and governed his conduct accordingly, Bob Bannister believed in him, trusted him, followed him in spirit, and would have followed him in body had he been of sufficient age to bear arms. But here and now was the fact of his father’s conscription to deal with; a fact which opened the door to untold trouble, to possible, if not probable, tragedy. For Bob knew that in declaring his proposed resistance to the draft his father was not indulging in mere bravado. What Rhett Bannister said he meant, and what he undertook[89] to do he did if it was within the power of human accomplishment. So Bob waited in dread for the coming of the officer to serve the notice of the draft. But when, three days after the drawing, a deputy provost-marshal did come with a conscription notice, neither Bob nor his father was at home. So the notice was left at the house with Mrs. Bannister, and she, poor woman, after contemplating it all the afternoon with dread and apprehension, thrust it into her husband’s hand at night, saying deprecatingly, tearfully:— “O Rhett, I couldn’t help it! He just gave it to me, and I didn’t know what it meant till I read it, and I don’t know now, except I suppose it means that you are really drafted and must go to war. And he wouldn’t stay to let me tell him why it was just impossible for you to go, and—and that’s all I know about it, Rhett dear.” Bannister took the notice and read it over. It was simply to the effect that, in accordance with the Act of Congress of[90] March 3, 1863, he had been drawn to serve for three years, or during the war, as a soldier in the armies of the United States. It further notified him to report for duty within ten days from the date of service of the notice, at the office of the provost-marshal for the district, Captain Samuel Yohe, at Easton, Pa. There was an additional notice to those desiring to purchase release from service, to pay the three hundred dollars commutation money to the deputy internal-revenue collector for the district. When he had carefully read the notice a second time, Bannister folded it and laid it on the desk. “I have ten days of peace,” he said, “in which to prepare for war.” Thereafter he was very busy. He cleaned up many odds and ends of work as though he were preparing for a long journey. Oddly enough, however, he spent much time in making repairs to his windmill. He carried the boxing of the shaft higher above the roof of his shop, closed the top of[91] it over carefully, and made a little window in each of the four sides. He appeared anxious to get it completed before a storm should come up. Little was said about the draft, or about his personal liability for service, and the subject of commutation money, or a substitute, was not again so much as mentioned. But it was with a sense of dread and apprehension that Mrs. Bannister and Bob saw the days go by, saw the preparations going forward for the approaching crisis, noted the fixed lips and the unfaltering eye that always indicated that Rhett Bannister’s mind was made up and that wild horses could not drag him from his purpose. Once, the thought flashed across Bob’s mind that possibly, instead of attempting to resist the draft, his father had decided to accept the inevitable and report for duty as a soldier of the United States. And the idea sent such a thrill of joy through him, so set the blood to bounding in his veins, opened up to him such a vision of pride and exultation, that it was hard for[92] him to get back to the level of the stubborn fact that all the work being done by his father was being done simply for the purpose of being better prepared to resist the officers of the law. So, on the evening of the tenth day from the date of service of notice of the draft, Rhett Bannister was still at his home. With apparent unconcern he sat at the table in his sitting-room reading a late copy of the New York <cite>Day-Book</cite>, a violent anti-administration journal which had that day reached him. “The <cite>Day-Book</cite> is right,” he said, laying down the paper, “in declaring that if there was any manhood left in Pennsylvania, her citizens would rise in armed rebellion against the enforcement of this cruel and obnoxious draft as did the citizens of New York city in July. If the army had both ways to face, North and South, the war would soon be at end. Well, I am but one against the powers at Washington, but all the armies of the United States cannot[93] force me to wear their uniform and bear their weapons against my will.” By that speech, Bob’s hopes, if he still cherished any, were completely dashed. He knew by that that his father would resist the enforcement of the draft to the end, bitter and bloody though the end might be. The ten days had expired. All the other drafted men from Mount Hermon had gone to Easton. But Rhett Bannister had not responded to the call. Henceforth, by the terms of the conscription act, he was classed as a deserter, subject to arrest, court-martial, and speedy execution. He himself said that a price was now on his head. Mrs. Bannister went about the house, pale, apprehensive, starting fearfully at every unusual sound, peering constantly up the road, yet in dread of what she might see there. For Bob, his days were miserable and his nights were sleepless. He turned over constantly in his mind scheme after scheme to[94] save the honor of the family and to relieve his father from the desperate situation in which he had placed himself. But all schemes were useless, impractical, impossible. On the fourth day after the expiration of the time-limit, a rumor from a friendly source floated down secretly to the Bannister homestead, to the effect that a detachment of United States soldiers, members of the invalid corps, on provost-guard duty, had reached the county seat and were about to start out to round up deserters, and drafted men who had failed to respond. They were likely, the warning went, to appear at Mount Hermon at any hour. Loyal citizens said that Rhett Bannister had reached the end of his rope; and radical Unionists remarked that the end of that rope had a loop in it. Seth Mills came over that afternoon to have a last talk with his obdurate neighbor. “It won’t do any good, Rhett,” he declared. “They’re bound to git ye sooner[95] or later, dead or alive. Now what’s the use o’ bein’ so confounded pigheaded an’ contrary? Why don’t you jest make up your mind to go like a man an’ hev done with it, fer your wife’s sake, an’ your children’s sake, an’ your country’s sake, by cracky! That’s what I say.” And Bannister replied:— “I would be less than a man, Seth, if I yielded principle and pride, and humbled and stultified myself like a coward, in order to make it easy for my family and myself. No matter what the outcome of this awful struggle may be, no matter what becomes of me in this crisis, I intend that my children and my children’s children shall say of me, in the days to come: ‘He kept his judgment and his conscience clear.’ I will not yield, Seth, I will not yield.” And that ended the argument, and Seth Mills limped back home, discouraged, saddened, angry, that his neighbor, whom he loved for his many kindnesses and sterling character, should be so blind to his own[96] interests, so obstinate, so childish, so utterly unreasonable. That night, some time after midnight, Bob was wakened from a troubled sleep, more by the feeling that something was going wrong than by any actual noises that he heard. He sat up in bed and listened, and, from somewhere outside the house, the sound of low voices came distinctly to his ears. He leaped to the floor, thinking that at last the provost-guard had come to apprehend his father, and had chosen the night-time for their errand, thinking the more easily to find him. Hastily slipping on his shoes and trousers, he started down the hall. By a ray of moonlight which fell through the hall-window he discovered his mother standing at the door of her room, fully dressed. “Oh, Rob,” she whispered, “be still! be still!” When he came closer to her he saw that she had been weeping and that her face was white with fear. [97] “Where’s father?” he asked. “Hush! He’s not here. He went out after you went to bed. He’s been away all night. Oh, Robbie, look here!” She took his hand and led him to the window of her room and pointed out into the road. Distinctly, in the moonlight, he saw a man in uniform, carrying a gun, pacing back and forth along the road in front of the house. Then she took him to the hall-window, and showed him another soldier leaning carelessly against the garden fence, with his eyes fixed on the rear of the house. “There are four of them,” she said. “They came a few minutes ago. I saw them come down the road. They have surrounded the house.” “But, father,” repeated Bob; “where’s father?” “Hush, Robbie, hush! They won’t find him. They think he’s here in the house, but he isn’t. He left it long before they came.” [98] “But, where is he, mother? I insist on knowing.” “Don’t talk so loud, Robbie. You’ll waken Louise. They’ll hear you.” “Did he go to the woods, mother? to the barn? to the shop? where?” “Hush! my boy, hush! Don’t whisper it. He went to the shop. He’s in—Robbie, listen, he’s in the windmill tower. He has his gun with him, and his revolver. He’s going to—to—” She reeled and fell, fainting and exhausted, into the boy’s arms, and he led and dragged her back into her own room, and laid her tenderly on her bed. He chafed her hands and bathed her face, and by and by she returned to consciousness, and told him in more detail of the manner in which his father had left the house, and of the coming of the soldiers. But she never loosened her clasp of his hand until the gray light in the eastern sky announced the approach of dawn. Then there came a knocking at the hall-door[99] of the house. Bob released his hand from his mother’s, and slipped quietly into his own room and began to put on the rest of his clothes. But, long before he had finished, the knocking was repeated. It came louder, more persistently. He made haste to be ready, but, before he could leave his room, the knocking was again renewed, with strokes that resounded through the house. Somehow it reminded him of the knocking at the gate in Macbeth, and of the awful tragedy which the opening of that gate was to disclose. What tragedy would follow the knocking at the door of the house of Bannister? <hr class="chap" /> [100] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.