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Taken Alive

E >> E. P. Roe >> Taken Alive



Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team




The Works of E. P. Roe

VOLUME ELEVEN

TAKEN ALIVE
AND OTHER STORIES
WITH AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY


ILLUSTRATED


CONTENTS

"A NATIVE AUTHOR CALLED ROE"

TAKEN ALIVE:
I. SOMETHING BEFORE UNKNOWN
II. A VISITOR AT THE MINE
III. THWARTED
IV. TAKEN ALIVE
V. WHAT BRANDT SAW CHRISTMAS EVE

FOUND YET LOST:
I. LOVE IN THE WILDERNESS
II. LOVE AT HOME
III. "DISABLED"
IV. MARTINE SEEKS AN ANTIDOTE
V. SECOND BLOOM
VI. MORE THAN REWARD
VII. YANKEE BLANK
VIII. "HOW CAN I?"
IX. SHADOWS OF COMING EVENTS
X. "YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND"
XI. MR. KEMBLE'S APPEAL
XII. "YOU MUST REMEMBER"
XIII. "I'M HELEN"
XIV. "FORWARD! COMPANY A"

QUEEN OF SPADES

AN UNEXPECTED RESULT

A CHRISTMAS-EVE SUIT

THREE THANKSGIVING KISSES

SUSIE ROLLIFFE'S CHRISTMAS

JEFF'S TREASURE:
I. ITS DISCOVERY
II. ITS INFLUENCE

CAUGHT ON THE EBB-TIDE

CHRISTMAS EVE IN WAR TIMES

A BRAVE LITTLE QUAKERESS






"A NATIVE AUTHOR CALLED ROE"

An Autobiography


Two or three years ago the editor of "Lippincott's Magazine" asked
me, with many others, to take part in the very interesting
"experience meeting" begun in the pages of that enterprising
periodical. I gave my consent without much thought of the effort
involved, but as time passed, felt slight inclination to comply
with the request. There seemed little to say of interest to the
general public, and I was distinctly conscious of a certain sense
of awkwardness in writing about myself at all. The question, Why
should I? always confronted me.

When this request was again repeated early in the current year, I
resolved at least to keep my promise. This is done with less
reluctance now, for the reason that floating through the press I
meet with paragraphs concerning myself that are incorrect, and
often absurdly untrue. These literary and personal notes, together
with many questioning letters, indicate a certain amount of public
interest, and I have concluded that it may be well to give the
facts to those who care to know them.

It has been made more clear to me that there are many who honestly
do care. One of the most prized rewards of my literary work is the
ever-present consciousness that my writings have drawn around me a
circle of unknown yet stanch friends, who have stood by me
unfalteringly for a number of years. I should indeed be lacking if
my heart did not go out to them in responsive friendliness and
goodwill. If I looked upon them merely as an aggregation of
customers, they would find me out speedily. A popular mood is a
very different thing from an abiding popular interest. If one
could address this circle of friends only, the embarrassment
attendant on a certain amount of egotism would be banished by the
assurance of sympathetic regard. Since, from the nature of
circumstances, this is impossible, it seems to me in better taste
to consider the "author called Roe" in an objective, rather than
in a friendly and subjective sense. In other words, I shall try to
look at him from the public point of view, and free myself from
some predisposition in his favor shared by his friends. I suppose
I shall not succeed in giving a colorless statement of fact, but I
may avoid much special pleading in his behalf.

Like so many other people, I came from a very old family, one from
which there is good proof of an unbroken line through the Dark
Ages, and all ages, to the first man. I have never given any time
to tracing ancestry, but have a sort of quiet satisfaction that
mine is certainly American as far as it well can be. My
forefathers (not "rude," to my knowledge) were among the first
settlers on the Atlantic seaboard. My paternal and maternal
grandfathers were stanch Whigs during the Revolution, and had the
courage of their convictions. My grandmother escaped with her
children from the village of Kingston almost as the British
entered it, and her home was soon in ashes. Her husband, James
Roe, was away in the army. My mother died some years before I
attained my majority, and I cannot remember when she was not an
invalid. Such literary tendencies as I have are derived from her,
but I do not possess a tithe of her intellectual power. Her story-
books in her youth were the classics; and when she was but twelve
years of age she knew "Paradise Lost" by heart. In my
recollections of her, the Bible and all works tending to elucidate
its prophecies were her favorite themes of study. The
retentiveness of her memory was very remarkable. If any one
repeated a verse of the New Testament, she could go on and finish
the chapter. Indeed, she could quote the greater part of the Bible
with the ease and accuracy of one reading from the printed page.
The works of Hugh Miller and the Arctic Explorations of Dr. Kane
afforded her much pleasure. Confined usually to her room, she took
unfailing delight in wandering about the world with the great
travellers of that day, her strong fancy reproducing the scenes
they described. A stirring bit of history moved her deeply. Well
do I remember, when a boy, of reading to her a chapter from
Motley's "Dutch Republic," and of witnessing in her flushed cheeks
and sparkling black eyes proof of an excitement all too great for
one in her frail health. She had the unusual gift of relating in
an easy, simple way what she read; and many a book far too
abstruse and dull for my boyish taste became an absorbing story
from her lips. One of her chief characteristics was the love of
flowers. I can scarcely recall her when a flower of some kind,
usually a rose, was not within her reach; and only periods of
great feebleness kept her from their daily care, winter and
summer. Many descendants of her floral pets are now blooming in my
garden.

My father, on the other hand, was a sturdy man of action. His love
for the country was so strong that he retired from business in New
York as soon as he had won a modest competence. For forty-odd
years he never wearied in the cultivation of his little valley
farm, and the square, flower-bordered garden, at one side of which
ran an unfailing brook. In this garden and under his tuition I
acquired my love of horticulture--acquired it with many a
backache--heartache too, on days good for fishing or hunting; but,
taking the bitter with the sweet, the sweet predominated. I find
now that I think only of the old-fashioned roses in the borders,
and not of my hands bleeding from the thorns. If I groaned over
the culture of many vegetables, it was much compensation to a boy
that the dinner-table groaned also under the succulent dishes thus
provided. I observed that my father's interest in his garden and
farm never flagged, thus proving that in them is to be found a
pleasure which does not pall with age. During the last summer of
his life, when in his eighty-seventh year, he had the delight of a
child in driving over to my home in the early morning, long before
I was up, and in leaving a basket of sweet corn or some other
vegetable which he knew would prove his garden to be ahead of
mine.

My father was very simple and positive in his beliefs, always
openly foremost in the reform movements of his day and in his
neighborhood, yet never, to my knowledge, seeking or taking any
office. His house often became a station of the "underground
railroad" in slavery times, and on one night in the depth of
winter he took a hotly-pursued fugitive in his sleigh and drove
him five miles on the ice, diagonally across the Hudson, to
Fishkill, thence putting the brave aspirant for freedom on the way
to other friends. He incurred several risks in this act. It is
rarely safe to drive on the river off the beaten tracks at night,
for there are usually air-holes, and the strong tides are
continually making changes in the ice. When told that he might be
sent to jail for his defiance of the Fugitive Slave Law, he
quietly answered, "I can go to jail." The thing he could not do
was to deny the man's appeal to him for help. Before the war he
was known as an Abolitionist--after it, as a Conservative, his
sympathy with and for the South being very strong. During the
draft riots in 1863 the spirit of lawlessness was on the point of
breaking out in the river towns. I happened to be home from
Virginia, and learned that my father's house was among those
marked for burning on a certain night. During this night the horde
gathered; but one of their leaders had received such empathetic
warning of what would happen the following day should outrages be
perpetrated, that he persuaded his associates to desist. I sat up
that night at my father's door with a double-barrelled gun, more
impressed with a sense of danger than at any other time in my
experience; he, on the contrary, slept as quietly as a child.

He often practiced close economy in order to give his sons a good
education. The one act of my life which I remember with unalloyed
pride and pleasure occurred while I was at boarding-school in
Vermont, preparing for college. I learned through my mother that
my father had denied himself his daily newspaper; and I knew well
how much he would miss it. We burned wood in the large stone
seminary building. Every autumn great ranks of hard maple were
piled up, and students who wished to earn a little money were paid
a dollar a cord for sawing it into three lengths. I applied for
nine cords, and went at the unaccustomed task after study hours.
My back aches yet as I recall the experiences of subsequent weeks,
for the wood was heavy, thick, and hard as bone. I eventually had
the pleasure of sending to my father the subscription price of his
paper for a year. If a boy reads these lines, let me assure him
that he will never know a sweeter moment in his life than when he
receives the thanks of his parents for some such effort in their
behalf. No investment can ever pay him better.

In one of my books, "Nature's Serial Story," my father and mother
appear, slightly idealized.

Toward the close of my first year in Williams College a misfortune
occurred which threatened to be very serious. Studying by
defective light injured my eyes. They quickly became so sensitive
that I could scarcely endure lamplight or the heat of a stove,
only the cold out-door air relieving the pain; so I spent much
time in wandering about in the boisterous weather of early spring
in Williamstown. At last I became so discouraged that I went to
President Hopkins and told him that I feared I must give up the
purpose of acquiring an education. Never can I forget how that
grand old man met the disheartened boy. Speaking in the wise,
friendly way which subdued the heart and strengthened the will, he
made the half-hour spent with him the turning-point of my life. In
conclusion, he advised me to enter the Senior class the following
fall, thus taking a partial course of study. How many men are
living to-day who owe much of the best in their lives to that
divinely inspired guide and teacher of youth!

I next went to another man great in his sphere of life--Dr. Agnew,
the oculist. He gave my eyes a thorough examination, told me that
he could do nothing for them; that rest and the vigor acquired
from out-door life would restore them. He was as kind and
sympathetic in his way as the college president, and charged but a
trifle, to relieve me from the sense of taking charity. Dr.
Agnew's words proved correct; and the following autumn I entered
the class of '61, and spent a happy year. Some of my classmates
were very kind in reading aloud to me, while Dr. Hopkins's
instruction was invaluable. By the time I entered Auburn
Theological Seminary, my eyes were quite restored, and I was able
to go through the first year's course of study without difficulty.
In the summer of 1862 I could no longer resist the call for men in
the army. Learning that the Second New York (Harris's Light)
Cavalry was without a chaplain, I obtained the appointment to that
position. General Kilpatrick was then lieutenant-colonel, and in
command of the regiment. In December, 1862, I witnessed the bloody
and disastrous battle of Fredericksburg, and can never forget the
experiences of that useless tragedy. I was conscious of a
sensation which struck me as too profound to be merely awe. Early
in the morning we crossed the Rappahannock on a pontoon bridge and
marched up the hill to an open plain. The roar of the battle was
simply terrific, shading off from the sharp continuous thunder
immediately about us to dull, heavy mutterings far to the right
and left. A few hundred yards before us, where the ground began to
slope up to the fatal heights crowned with Confederate works and
ordnance, were long lines of Union batteries. From their iron
mouths puffs of smoke issued incessantly, followed by tremendous
reverberations. Back of these batteries the ground was covered
with men lying on their arms, that they might present a less
obvious target. Then a little further to the rear, on the level
ground above the bluff, stood our cavalry. Heavy guns on both
sides of the river were sending their great shrieking shells back
and forth over our heads, and we often "ducked" instinctively when
the missile was at least forty feet above us. Even our horses
shuddered at the sound.

I resolved to learn if the men were sharing in my emotions--in
brief, what effect the situation had upon them--and rode slowly
down our regimental line. So vivid was the impression of that long
array of awed, pallid faces that at this moment I can recall them
distinctly. There were strange little touches of mingled pathos
and humor. Meadow-larks were hemmed in on every side, too
frightened to fly far beyond the rude alarms. They would flutter
up into the sulphurous air with plaintive cries, then drop again
into the open spaces between the troops. At one time, while we
were standing at our horses' heads, a startled rabbit ran to us
for cover. The poor little creature meant a dinner to the
fortunate captor on a day when a dinner was extremely
problematical. We engaged in a sharp scramble, the prize being won
by the regimental surgeon, who kindly shared his game with me.

General Bayard, commanding our brigade, was mortally wounded, and
died like a hero. He was carried to a fine mansion near which he
had received his injury. Many other desperately wounded men were
brought to the spacious rooms of this abode of Southern luxury,
and the surgeons were kept busy all through the day and night. It
was here I gained my first experience in hospital work. This
extemporized hospital on the field was so exposed as to be
speedily abandoned. In the morning I recrossed the Rappahannock
with my regiment, which had been ordered down the river on picket
duty. Soon after we went into winter quarters in a muddy
cornfield. In February I resigned, with the purpose of completing
my studies, and spent the remainder of the term at the Union
Theological Seminary of New York. My regiment would not get
another chaplain, so I again returned to it. In November I
received a month's leave of absence, and was married to Miss Anna
P. Sands, of New York City. Our winter quarters in 1864 were at
Stevensburg, between the town of Culpeper and the Rapidan River.
During the pleasant days of late February several of the officers
were enjoying the society of their wives. Mrs. Roe having
expressed a willingness to rough it with me for a week, I sent for
her, and one Saturday afternoon went to the nearest railroad
station to meet her. The train came, but not my wife; and, much
disappointed, I found the return ride of five miles a dreary one
in the winter twilight. I stopped at our colonel's tent to say to
him and his wife that Mrs. Roe had not come, then learned for the
first time very startling tidings.

"Chaplain," said the colonel, "we are going to Richmond to-morrow.
We are going to wade right through and past everything in a neck-
or-nothing ride, and who will come out is a question."

His wife was weeping in her private tent, and I saw that for the
first time in my acquaintance with him he was downcast. He was one
of the bravest of men, yet now a foreboding of evil oppressed him.
The result justified it, for he was captured during the raid, and
never fully rallied after the war from the physical depression
caused by his captivity. He told me that on the morrow General
Kilpatrick would lead four thousand picked cavalry men in a raid
on Richmond, having as its special object the release of our
prisoners. I rode to the headquarters of the general, who
confirmed the tidings, adding, "You need not go. Non-combatants
are not expected to go."

It was most fortunate that my wife had not come. I had recently
been appointed chaplain of Hampton Hospital, Virginia, by
President Lincoln, and was daily expecting my confirmation by the
Senate. I had fully expected to give my wife a glimpse of army
life in the field, and then to enter on my new duties. To go or
not to go was a question with me that night. The raid certainly
offered a sharp contrast with the anticipated week's outing with
my bride. I did not possess by nature that kind of courage which
is indifferent to danger; and life had never offered more
attractions than at that time. I have since enjoyed Southern
hospitality abundantly, and hope to again, but then its prospect
was not alluring. Before morning, however, I reached the decision
that I would go, and during the Sunday forenoon held my last
service in the regiment. I had disposed of my horse, and so had to
take a sorry beast at the last moment, the only one I could
obtain.

In the dusk of Sunday evening four thousand men were masked in the
woods on the banks of the Rapidan. Our scouts opened the way by
wading the stream and pouncing upon the unsuspecting picket of
twenty Confederates opposite. Then away we went across a cold,
rapid river, marching all that night through the dim woods and
openings in a country that was emphatically the enemy's. Lee's
entire army was on our right, the main Confederate cavalry force
on our left. The strength of our column and its objective point
could not remain long unknown.

In some unimportant ways I acted as aid for Kilpatrick. A few
hundred yards in advance of the main body rode a vanguard of two
hundred men, thrown forward to warn us should we strike any
considerable number of the enemy's cavalry. As is ever the case,
the horses of a small force will walk away from a much larger
body, and it was necessary from time to time to send word to the
vanguard, ordering it to "slow up." This order was occasionally
intrusted to me. I was to gallop over the interval between the two
columns, then draw up by the roadside and sit motionless on my
horse till the general with his staff came up. The slightest
irregularity of action would bring a shot from our own men, while
the prospect of an interview with the Johnnies while thus isolated
was always good. I saw one of our officers shot that night. He had
ridden carelessly into the woods, and rode out again just before
the head of the column, without instantly accounting for himself.
As it was of vital importance to keep the movement secret as long
as possible, the poor fellow was silenced in sad error as to his
identity.

On we rode, night and day, with the briefest possible halts. At
one point we nearly captured a railroad train, and might easily
have succeeded had not the station and warehouses been in flames.
As it was, the train approached us closely, then backed, the
shrieking engine itself giving the impression of being startled to
the last degree.

On a dreary, drizzling, foggy day we passed a milestone on which
was lettered, "Four miles to Richmond." It was still "on to
Richmond" with us what seemed a long way further, and then came a
considerable period of hesitancy, in which the command was drawn
up for the final dash. The enemy shelled a field near us
vigorously, but fortunately, or unfortunately, the fog was so
dense that neither party could make accurate observations or do
much execution.

For reasons that have passed into history, the attack was not
made. We withdrew six miles from the city and went into camp.

I had scarcely begun to enjoy much-needed rest before the
Confederates came up in the darkness and shelled us out of such
quarters as we had found. We had to leave our boiling coffee
behind us--one of the greatest hardships I have ever known. Then
followed a long night-ride down the Peninsula, in driving sleet
and rain.

The next morning the sun broke out gloriously, warming and drying
our chilled, wet forms. Nearly all that day we maintained a line
of battle confronting the pursuing enemy. One brigade would take a
defensive position, while the other would march about five miles
to a commanding point, where it in turn would form a line. The
first brigade would then give way, pass through the second, and
take position well to the rear. Thus, although retreating, we were
always ready to fight. At one point the enemy pressed us closely,
and I saw a magnificent cavalry charge down a gentle descent in
the road. Every sabre seemed tipped with fire in the brilliant
sunshine.

In the afternoon it became evident that there was a body of troops
before us. Who or what they were was at first unknown, and for a
time the impression prevailed that we should have to cut our way
through by a headlong charge. We soon learned, however, that the
force was a brigade of colored infantry, sent up to cover our
retreat. It was the first time we had seen negro troops, but as
the long line of glistening bayonets and light-blue uniforms came
into view, prejudices, if any there were, vanished at once, and a
cheer from the begrimed troopers rang down our line, waking the
echoes. It was a pleasant thing to march past that array of faces,
friendly though black, and know we were safe. They represented the
F.F.V.'s of Old Virginia, we then wished to see. On the last day
of the march my horse gave out, compelling me to walk and lead
him.

On the day after our arrival at Yorktown, Kilpatrick gave me
despatches for the authorities at Washington. President Lincoln,
learning that I had just returned from the raid, sent for me, and
I had a memorable interview with him alone in his private room. He
expressed profound solicitude for Colonel Dahlgren and his party.
They had been detached from the main force, and I could give no
information concerning them. We eventually learned of the death of
that heroic young officer, Colonel Dahlgren. Although partially
helpless from the loss of a leg, he led a daring expedition at the
cost of his life.

I expressed regret to the President that the object of the raid
had not been accomplished. "Pick the flint, and try it again,"
said Mr. Lincoln, heartily. I went out from his presence awed by
the courage and sublime simplicity of the man. While he gave the
impression that he was bearing the nation on his heart, one was
made to feel that it was also large enough for sympathy with all
striving with him in the humblest way.

My wife joined me in Washington, and few days later accompanied me
to the scene of my new labors at Hampton Hospital, near Fortress
Monroe. There were not many patients at that time (March, 1864) in
the large barrack wards; but as soon as the Army of the Potomac
broke through the Wilderness and approached our vicinity,
transports in increasing numbers, laden with desperately wounded
men, came to our wharf. During the early summer the wooden
barracks were speedily filled, and many tent wards were added.
Duty became constant and severe, while the scenes witnessed were
often painful in the last degree. More truly than on the field,
the real horrors of war are learned from the long agonies in the
hospital. While in the cavalry service, I gained in vigor daily;
in two months of hospital work I lost thirty pounds. On one day I
buried as many as twenty-nine men. Every evening, till the duty
became like a nightmare, I followed the dead-cart, filled up with
coffins, once, twice, and often thrice, to the cemetery.
Eventually an associate chaplain was appointed, who relieved me of
this task.

Fortunately, my tastes led me to employ an antidote to my daily
work as useful to me as to the patients. Surrounding the hospital
was much waste land. This, with the approval of the surgeon in
charge, Dr. Ely McMillan, and the aid of the convalescents, I
transformed into a garden, and for two successive seasons sent to
the general kitchen fresh vegetables by the wagon-load. If reward
were needed, the wistful delight with which a patient from the
front would regard a raw onion was ample; while for me the care of
the homely, growing vegetables and fruit brought a diversion of
mind which made life more endurable.

One of the great needs of the patients who had to fight the
winning or losing battle of life was good reading, and I speedily
sought to obtain a supply. Hearts and purses at the North
responded promptly and liberally; publishers threw off fifty per
cent from their prices; and I was eventually able to collect, by
gift and purchase, about three thousand volumes. In gathering this
library, I provided what may be distinctly termed religious
reading in abundance; but I also recognized the need of diversion.
Long wards were filled with men who had lost a leg or an arm, and
who must lie in one position for weeks. To help them get through
the time was to help them to live. I therefore made the library
rich in popular fiction and genial books of travel and biography.
Full sets of Irving, Cooper, Dickens, Thackeray, Scott, Marryat,
and other standard works were bought; and many a time I have seen
a poor fellow absorbed in their pages while holding his stump lest
the jar of a footstep should send a dart of agony to the point of
mutilation. My wife gave much assistance in my hospital duties,
often reaching and influencing those beyond me. I recall one poor
fellow who was actually six months in dying from a very painful
wound. Profanity appeared to be his vernacular, and in bitter
protest at his fate, he would curse nearly every one and
everything. Mrs. Roe's sympathy and attentions changed him very
much, and he would listen quietly as long as she would read to
him. Some of the hospital attendants, men and women, had good
voices, and we organized a choir. Every Sunday afternoon we went
from ward to ward singing familiar hymns. It was touching to see
rough fellows drawing their blankets over their heads to hide the
emotion caused by words and melodies associated, in many
instances, with home and mother.

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