University of Virginia Library

35. The Innocent Deserter
By JOHN ESTEN COOKE (1862)

I WAS sitting on my horse near General Stuart, who had put in the skirmishers, and was now superintending the fire of his artillery, when a cavalry-man rode up and reported that they had just captured a deserter.

"Where is he ? "was Stuart's brief interrogatory. "Coming yonder, General."

"How do you know he is a deserter?

"One of my company knew him when he joined our army."

"Where is he from?

"Anglaize county."

"What is his name?"

"Morton."

"Bring him up,"said Stuart coldly, with a lowering glance from the blue eyes under the brown hat and black feather. As he spoke, two or three mounted men rode up with the prisoner.

I can see him at this moment with the mind's eye, as I saw him then with the material eye. He was a young man, apparently eighteen or nineteen years of age, and wore the blue uniform, tipped with red, of a private in the United States Artillery. The singular fact was that he appeared completely at his ease. He seemed to be wholly unconscious of the critical position which he occupied ; and as he approached, I observed that he returned the dark glance of Stuart with the air of a man who says, "What do you find in my appearance to make you fix your eyes upon me intently In another moment he was in Stuart's presence, and calmly, quietly, without the faintest exhibition of embarrassment, or any emotion whatever, waited to be addressed.

Stuart's words were curtest of the curt.

"Is this the man ? "he said.

"Yes, General,"replied one of the escort.

"You say he is a deserter ?"

"Yes, sir ; I knew him in Anglaize county, when he joined Captain Hollins's company; and there is no sort of doubt about it, General, as he acknowledges that he is the same person."

"Acknowledges it!"

"Yes, sir; acknowledges that he is Morton, from that county; and that after joining the South he deserted."

Stuart flashed a quick glance at the prisoner, and seemed at a loss to understand what fatuity had

induced him to testify against himself, thereby sealing his fate, His gaze, clear, fiery, menacing, was returned by the youth with apathetic calmness. Not a muscle of his countenance moved, and I now had an opportunity to look at him more attentively. He was even younger than I at first thought him, indeed, a mere boy. His complexion was fair; his hair flaxen and curling; his eyes blue, mild, and as soft in their expression as a girl's. Their expression, as they met the lowering glances of Stuart, was almost confiding. I could not suppress a sigh, so painful was the thought that this youth would probably be lying soon with a bullet through his heart.

A kinder-hearted person than General Stuart never lived; but in all that appertained to his profession and duty as a soldier, he was inexorable. Desertion, in his estimation, was one of the deadliest crimes of which a human being could be guilty ; and his course was plain, his resolution immovable.

"What is your name?"said the General coldly, with a lowering brow.

"Morton, sir,"was the response, in a mild and pleasing voice, in which it was impossible to discern the least trace of emotion.

"Where are you from?"

"I belonged to the battery that was firing at you, over yonder, sir."

The voice had not changed. A calmer tone I never heard.

"Where were you born ?"continued Stuart, as coldly as before.

"In Shelby, Virginia, sir."

"Did you belong to the Southern army at any time?"

"Yes, sir."

The coolness of the speaker was incredible. Stuart could only look at him for a moment in silence, so astonishing was this equanimity at a time when his life and death were in the balance. Not a tone of the voice, a movement of the muscles, or a tremor of the lip indicated consciousness of his danger. The eye never quailed, the colour in his check never faded. The prisoner acknowledged that he was a deserter from the Southern army with the simplicity, candour, and calmness of one who saw in that fact nothing extraordinary, or calculated in any, manner to affect his destiny unpleasantly. Stuart's eye flashed; he could not understand such apathy ; but in war there is little time to investigate psychological phenomena.

"So you were in our ranks, and you went over to the enemy, ? "he said with a sort of growl.

Yes, sir,"was the calm reply.

You were a private in that battery yonder ?

"Yes, sir."

Stuart turned to an officer, and pointing to a tall pine near, said in brief tones:

"Hang him on that tree!"

It was then that a change-sudden, awful, horrible-came over the face of the prisoner; at that moment I read in the distended eyeballs the vision of sudden death. The youth became ghastly pale; and the eyes, before so vacant and apathetic, were all at once injected with blood, and full of piteous fright. I saw in an instant that the boy had not for a single moment realized the terrible danger of his position ; and that the words "Hang him on that tree!"had burst upon him with the sudden and appalling force of a thunderbolt. He had evidently regarded himself

as a mere prisoner of war; and now be was condemned to death! He had looked forward, doubtless, to mere imprisonment at Richmond until regularly exchanged, when "hang him on that tree!"burst upon his ears like the voice of some avenging Nemesis.

Terrible, piteous, sickening, was the expression of the boy's face. He seemed to feel already the rope around his neck; he choked ; when he spoke his voice sounded like the death-rattle. An instant of horror-struck silence ; a gasp or two as if the words were trying to force their way against some obstacle in his throat; then the sound came. His tones were not loud, impassioned, energetic, not even animated. A sick terror seemed to have frozen him ; when be spoke it was in a sort of moan.

"I didn't know,"he muttered in low, husky tones. I never meant— when I went over to Maryland to fight against the South. They made me; I had nothing to eat—I told them I was a Southerner and so help me God I never fired a shot. I was with the wagons. Oh! General, spare me; I never-"

There the voice died out; and as pale as a corpse, trembling in every limb-a spectacle of helpless terror which no words can describe, the boy awaited his doom.

Stuart had listened in silence, his gaze riveted upon the speaker; his hand grasping his heavy beard; motionless amid the shell which were bursting around him. For an instant he seemed to hesitate—life and death were poised in the balances. Then with a cold look at the trembling deserter, he said to the men :

"Take him back to General Lee, and report the circumstances."

With these words he turned and galloped off ; the deserter was saved, at least for the moment.

I do not know his ultimate fate; but if he saw General Lee in person, and told his tale, I think he was spared, That great and merciful spirit inflicted the death-penalty only when he could not avoid it.

Since that day I have never seen the face of the boy—nor even expect to see it. But I shall never forget that vision of sudden death in his distended eyes, as Stuart's cold voice ordered, "Hang him on that tree."