The Master of Warlock: A Virginia War Story

"Don't ax 'em fer no passpo't fer you. Jes' let de other ladies ax fer passpo'ts fer demselves, an' a nigga boy to drive de carriage. I'll be de nigga boy. Den one o' de young ladies mout git over her skyar an' jes' stay at home, quiet like, an' let you take her place in de carriage. De young lady wouldn't have to go roun' tellin' folks she's done git over her skyar an' stayed at home. Nobody'd know nuffin' about her bein' heah fer a week, an' by dat time de Yankees would 'a' done fergitten how many folks went away in de carriage."

After some discussion it was agreed that Sam's plan, in its general outline at least, was feasible, and as there was no alternative way out, it was finally decided to adopt the scheme.

"You mus' do it right away den," suggested Sam, "while de skyar is on to folks. Ef you wait, de Yankees'll fin' out de trigger o' de trap, sho'. An' after awhile, all de ladies 'ceptin' you, Mis' Agatha, can git over de skyar an' come home agin."

Sam's plan was aided in its execution by the fact that several other families in the town were genuinely scared by the Confederate raid, and, as soon as the Federal posts were reëstablished, asked for passports under which they might send their women and children to less exposed points. When Agatha's hostess made a like application for herself and daughters, with their negro, "Sam, aged eighteen, five feet seven inches high," and all the rest of the description, no difficulty was encountered in securing the desired papers.

In order that Agatha might go as far northward as possible without having to renew her passport, it was decided that their destination should be at a point well beyond the Pennsylvania border. Agatha had no friends there, and she knew no one of Southern sympathies in the town selected. But thanks to Marshall Pollard, she had command of money in plenty, or would have, as soon as she could send the papers he had given her to New York. It was arranged, therefore, that the little party, in the character of refugees, should take quarters at a hotel until such time as Agatha could renew her journey without her companions. In the meantime, Agatha, by means of correspondence with her friends in Baltimore and Washington, could prosecute her inquiries as to Baillie Pegram's condition and whereabouts.

XXIII

A negotiation

Agatha did not remain long in the little Pennsylvania town. She found its people to be positively peppery in their Union sentiments, and she soon realised that she could make no inquiries from that point without attracting dangerous attention to herself. She saw, too, that the little city was not large enough for easy concealment. She could not there lose herself in the crowd and pass unobserved whithersoever she pleased. She promptly decided that her best course would be to go on to New York, but even that could not be undertaken with safety for a time. She must remain where she was for two or three weeks – long enough for her presence there to lose its character as a novelty.

Sam, who enjoyed her confidence to the full, suggested that she should feign ill-health, and leave the place under pretence of seeking a residence better suited to her constitution. That was not the way in which Sam expressed his thought, of course, but he made himself clearly understood by saying:

"Tell you what 'tis, Mis' Agatha, you'se jes' got to git powerful sick an' say you cawn't live in no sich a pesky town as dis here one. Den you kin pack up yer things, ef you've got any, an' move on."

Agatha laughed, and answered:

"Why, Sam, I don't know how to be ill. I never had a headache in my life, and I couldn't look like an invalid if I tried. No, Sam, we must just wait here for a time."

"Why, Mis' Agatha, it's de easiest thing in de world to make out as how you'se sick when you ain't. I'se done it hundreds of times, when mammy wanted me to wuk in de kitchen an' I wanted to go a-fishin'. All you got to do is to look solemncholy-like, an' say you'se got a pain in yo' haid an' a powerful misery in yo' back, an' cole chills a-creepin' all over you. Tell you what, it's as easy as nuffin' at all."

Agatha laughed again, but put Sam's plan aside without further discussion, whereat that budding strategist went away sorrowful, muttering to himself:

"I done heah folks say as how 'white man's mighty onsartain,' but Mis' Agatha's a heap wuss'n even a white man, leastwise 'bout some things."

A week later, Sam presented another plan, which he had wrought out in his mind at cost of not a little gray brain matter.

"Mis' Agatha," he asked, "is you got any frien's in New York what you kin trus' to do what you axes 'em to do?"

"Yes, Sam. There's one gentleman there who will do anything I ask him to do. He's the one to whom I sent the papers that I made you carry till we got here."

"Den you kin write to him?"

"Yes, certainly."

"Well, now, I'se got a plan dat'll wuk as easy – as easy as playin' of de banjo. You jes' write to dat gentleman, an' git him to sen' you a telemagraph, sayin' as how somebody's a-dyin' over there, somebody yo'se powerful fond of, an' so you mus' come quick."

This time Sam's suggestion commended itself to his mistress's mind, and soon afterward there came a telegram to her, saying:

"Come quick if you want to see Eliza alive."

She hurriedly packed the few belongings which she had purchased in the Pennsylvania town, bade her friends good-bye, and before noon of the next day, was safely hidden in the little lodging which Marshall Pollard's friend had secured for her in New York. In the great city she might go and come and do as she pleased without fear of observation, and without the least danger of attracting attention to herself. There is no solitude so secure as that of a thronged city, where men are too completely self-centred to concern themselves with the affairs of their neighbours.

Agatha's first inquiries concerning Baillie's whereabouts were directed toward the military prisons and prison-camps, but in none of them could she find a trace of the master of Warlock. When she had completely exhausted this field of inquiry, a great fear came upon her, that the man she sought was dead. The presumption was strong that he had died of his wound before he could be sent to any of the prisons provided for captured Confederates. A less resolute person would have accepted that conclusion, but Agatha persisted in her search, extending her inquiries to all the hospitals of the Federal army, and within a month her persistence was rewarded.

What she learned was that Baillie Pegram's wound had been too severe to admit of his transportation far beyond Washington, and that he, in company with a few other prisoners in like condition, had been placed in an improvised hospital a few miles north of the capital city, where he still lay under treatment, with only a slender chance of recovery. Her first impulse was to go to Washington at once, and endeavour in some way to secure permission to enter the hospital as a nurse. Her friends in Washington and in Maryland discouraged this attempt, assuring her not only of its futility, but of its danger. They were convinced, indeed, that she could not even enter Washington, which was then a vast fortified camp, without the discovery of her identity by the agents of a secret service which had become well-nigh omniscient, so far as personal identities, personal histories, and personal intentions were concerned.

"Stay where you are," one of them urgently wrote her, "and keep yourself free to act if at any time a chance shall come to accomplish any good. It would spoil all and destroy the last vestige of hope, for you to attempt what you suggest. You can do no good here. You may do inestimable good if you remain where you are."

When this decision was communicated to Sam, his round black face became long, and the look of laughter completely went out of his countenance. But Sam was not an easily discouraged person, and he had come to believe in his own sagacity. So after a day or two of disconsolate moping, he set his wits at work upon this new problem. Presently an idea was born to him, and he went at once to lay it before Agatha for consideration.

"Mis' Agatha," he said, "even ef you cawn't git to Mas' Baillie, Sam kin, an' that'll be better'n nothin', won't it?"

"Yes, Sam," answered the sad-eyed young woman, "very much better than nothing. You could take care of your master, and be a comfort to him, and if the time ever should come when anything could be done for him, you'd be on the ground to help. But how can you get to him?"

"I could manage dat, ef I was a free nigga," answered the boy, meditatively.

"But you are free, I suppose," said Agatha. "You've been brought to a free State, practically with your master's consent, and that makes you free, I believe. But – "

"O, I don't want to be a sho' 'nuff free nigga," interrupted Sam. "I ain't never a-gwine to be dat. I'se a-gwine to 'long to Mas' Baillie cl'ar to de end o' de cawn rows. But I done heah folks up heah say dat de Yankees is a-sendin' back all de niggas what runs away from der mahstahs, an' ef I ain't got nuffin' to say I'se free, dey'd sen' me back to Ferginny ef I went down dat way whar Mas' Baillie is."

Sam's information on this point was in a measure correct. For in the singleness of his purpose to save the Union at all costs, and in his anxiety not to alienate the border slave States by interfering with slavery where it legally existed, Mr. Lincoln steadfastly insisted, during the first year of the war, that military commanders should restore all fugitive slaves who should come to them for protection, or where that could not be done, should list them and employ them in work upon fortifications and the like.

Agatha thought for a time, and then said:

"I think I can manage that, Sam. I'll try, at any rate. But I must wait till to-morrow. Tell me how you expect to get to your master."

"I don't rightly know yit, Mis' Agatha. But I'll git dar. Maybe you'll send a letter to yo' frien's down dat way, tellin' 'em Sam's all right, so's dey'll trus' me. Ef you do dat, Mis' Agatha, I'll do de res'."

It was impossible, of course, to execute legal papers setting Sam free, nor were any papers at all necessary for his use, so long as he remained in New York. But in Washington he might have to give an account of himself, and by way of making sure that he should not be seized as a runaway slave, and set to work upon the fortifications, Agatha's friend, the banker, gave him a document in which he certified that the negro boy was not a runaway slave, but was known to him as a legally free negro, who had been living in New York, but wished to go to Washington and elsewhere in search of employment.

Armed with this paper, and with full instructions from Agatha as to how to find certain of her friends, Sam set out on his journey full of determination to succeed in his affectionate purpose.

In Washington, he engaged in various small employments that yielded a revenue in the form of tips. He purchased a banjo, and ingratiated himself everywhere by singing his plantation songs, including both those that he had learned from others, and a few, such as "Oh, Eliza," which he had fabricated for himself. In the course of a week or two he learned all he needed to know about roads, military lines, and the like, and was prepared to make his way to the hospital where his master lay.

There he besought employment of menial kinds, at the hands of the surgeons and other officers, of whom there were only a very few at the post. Again he strummed his banjo and sang his songs to good purpose, impressing everybody with the conviction that he was a jolly, thoughtless, happy-go-lucky negro, and very amusing withal. The hospital was a very small one in a very lonely part of the country, and service there was extremely tedious to those who were condemned to it. Sam's minstrelsy, therefore, was more than welcome as something that pleasantly broke the monotony, and the officers concerned were anxious to keep the amusing fellow employed at the post, lest he go elsewhere. They gave him all sorts of odd jobs to do, from blacking boots and polishing spurs and buckles, to grooming a horse when privileged in that way, to show his skill in "puttin' of a satin dress onto a good animal," as he called the process.

Agatha had provided the boy with a small sum of money for use in emergencies, and, as his living had cost him nothing, he had considerably added to its amount. He cherished it jealously, feeling that it might prove to be his readiest tool in accomplishing his purposes.

For a time he was not permitted to enter the hospital, which was nothing more than an old barn in which a floor had been laid and windows cut. Four sentries guarded it, one on each of its sides. The patients within numbered about fifteen, all of them wounded Confederate officers, for whom this provision had been made until such time as they should be sufficiently recovered to be taken North to a military prison.

Being in no regular way employed at the post, Sam was free to go and come as he pleased, and he did a good deal of night-prowling at this time. He managed in that way to establish relations with certain of Agatha's friends, whose residence was ten or a dozen miles away. He visited them at intervals in order to hear from Agatha, and report to her through them. He had not dared inquire concerning his master in any direct way, or to reveal his interest in any of the hospital patients. But when two of them had died, he had asked one of the servitors about the place what their names were, and had thus satisfied himself that neither of them was Captain Pegram. By keeping his ears on the alert, he had learned also that there were not likely to be any further deaths, and that the remaining wounded men were slowly, but quite surely, recovering. Still further, he had heard one of the doctors, in conversation with the other, comment upon the remarkable vitality of Captain Pegram.

"That wound would have killed almost any other man I ever saw, but upon my word the man is getting well. Barring accidents, I regard him now as pretty nearly out of danger."

All this Sam duly reported to Agatha through her friends. It greatly comforted her, but it seriously alarmed Sam. For Sam had learned the ways of the place, and he knew that there was haste made to send every patient North, as soon as he was in condition to be removed without serious danger to his life; and Sam had begun to cherish hopes and lay plans which would certainly come to nothing if his master should be removed from the hospital to a military prison.

He determined, therefore, to find some way of getting into the hospital, communicating with his master, and finding out for himself precisely what the prospects were.

It was winter now, and besides the snow there was much mud around the hospital, which was freely tracked into it by all who entered. Peter, the rheumatic old negro man who was employed to scrub the place, complained bitterly of this. He said to Sam one day:

"Dese heah doctahs an' dese heah 'tendants is mighty pahticklah to have de place keeped scrumptiously clean, but dey's mighty onpahticklah to wipe dar boots 'fo' enterin' de hospital. Ole Pete's done got mos' enough o' dis heah job."

"Why don't yo' quit it, den?" asked Sam, with seeming indifference.