General Nelson's Scout 11

General Nelson's Scout 11

"W-h-y why!" stammered the major, choking with rage, "you--you impudent

young----" here the major did choke. He could say no more.

 

Fred rather enjoyed it, and he continued: "And how is my friend Captain

Conway? I trust that he was not injured in his hurried exit from the

cars the other night."

 

All the rest of the company looked nonplused, but Morgan, who roared

with laughter.

 

"What does this mean?" sternly asked Mr. Shackelford of Fred.

 

"It means," answered Fred, "that I got the major's dispatches away from

Captain Conway, and thus saved Louisville from a scene of bloodshed and

horror. And, Major, you should thank me, for your scheme would have

failed anyway. The Union men were too well prepared. I really saved any

number of your friends from being killed, and there you sit choking with

rage, instead of calling me a good boy."

 

"Leave the room, Fred," commanded Mr. Shackelford; "that you should

insult a guest here in my own house is more than I can imagine."

 

Bowing, Fred retired, and the company turned to Major Hockoday for an

explanation of the extraordinary scene. The major told the story and

ended with saying: "I am sorry, Shackelford, that he is your boy. If I

were you, I should get him out of the country as soon as possible; he

will make you trouble."

 

"I will settle with him, never fear," replied Mr. Shackelford, grimly.

 

"Look here, Major," spoke up Morgan; "you are sore because that boy

outwitted you, and he did you a good turn, as he said. If your program

had been carried out, Louisville would be occupied by Federal troops

to-day. Thank him because he pulled the wool over Conway's eyes. Ha! ha!

two old duffers fooled by a boy!" and Morgan enjoyed a hearty laugh, in

which all but Major Hockoday and Mr. Shackelford joined.

 

"And, Shackelford," continued Morgan, after he had enjoyed his laugh, "I

want you to let that boy alone; he is the smartest boy in Kentucky. I

want him with me when I organize my cavalry brigade."

 

"I am afraid, Morgan," said Breckinridge, "that you will be disappointed

in that, though I hope not for Mr. Shackelford's sake. The boy looks to

me as if he had a will of his own."

 

"Oh, he will come around all right," responded Morgan.

 

After making full arrangements for the meeting to be held in Scott

county on the 17th, the company dispersed.

 

Hours after they had gone Fred heard his father restlessly pacing the

floor.

 

"Poor father!" thought he, "like me, he cannot sleep. I wonder what he

will say to me in the morning; but come what may, I must and shall be

for the Union."

 

At the breakfast table Mr. Shackelford was silent until the close of the

meal, when he simply said, "Fred, I would like to see you in the

library."

 

Fred bowed, and replied, "I will be there in a few moments, father."

 

When Fred entered the library, his father was seated at the table

writing. There was a look of care on his face, and Fred was startled to

see how pale he was.

 

Pushing aside his writing, he sat for some moments looking at his son in

silence. At last he said:

 

"Fred, you can hardly realize how pained I was last night to hear what I

did. I would not have thought it of you. But the past is gone. You are

old enough to realize something of the desperate nature of the struggle

in which the two sections of the country are engaged. For the past two

weeks I have thought much of what was the right thing to do. I love my

country; I love and revere the old flag. As long as the slightest hope

remained of restoring it as it was, I was for the Union. But this is now

hopeless; too much blood has been shed. Neither would the South, if

granted her own terms, now go back to a Union she not only hates, but

loathes. The North has no lawful right to use coercion. Kentucky, in her

sovereign right as a State, has declared for neutrality; and it has been

contemptuously ignored by the North. Nelson, a man to be despised by

every patriot, has not only organized troops in our midst, but now seeks

to have the Federal government arm them. Such true men as Breckinridge,

Marshall, Buckner, Morgan, and a host of other loyal Kentuckians have

sworn that this shall never be. General Buckner is now in Washington. If

he ascertains that the Lincoln government will not respect the

neutrality of the State by withdrawing every Federal officer and

soldier, he is going to proceed to Richmond and offer his services to

the Confederate Government. Once accepted, he will immediately form the

State Guards into an army, and turn them over to the Confederacy.

Regiments must be formed, and I have been offered the colonelcy of one

of these regiments."

 

Fred was startled, and stammered, "You--father--you?"

 

"Yes, my son, why not? If your mother had lived, it would have been

different, but now I can go far better than many who have gone. I have

arranged all of my business. I shall place Belle in school in

Cincinnati. John Stimson, who has been our overseer for so many years,

will remain and conduct the plantation. My only trouble has been to

dispose of you satisfactorily. My wish is to send you to college, but

knowing your adventurous disposition, and how fond you are of exciting

and, I might add, desperate deeds, I am afraid you would do no good in

your studies."

 

"You are right, father," said Fred, in a low voice.

 

"This being the case," continued Mr. Shackelford, "I was going to offer

to take you with me in the army, not as an enlisted soldier, but rather

as company and aid to me. But from what I heard last night, I do not see

how this is possible, unless what you have done has been a mere boyish

freak, which I do not think."

 

"It was no freak," said Fred, with an unsteady voice.

 

"So I thought. Therefore, the only thing I can do is to send you

away--to Europe. What do you say, an English or a German university?"

 

"And you are really going into the Confederate army, father?"

 

"Yes, my son."

 

"And you want me to play the coward and flee my country in this her hour

of greatest peril? Oh, father!"

 

Mr. Shackelford looked astonished, and then a smile of joy passed over

his features; could it be that Fred was going with him?

 

"Not if you wish to go with me, my son."

 

Fred arose and tottered to his father, sank beside his knee, and looking

up with a tear-stained face, said in a pleading voice:

 

"Don't go into the Confederate army, father; don't turn against the old

flag." And the boy laid his head on his father's knee and sobbed as if

his heart would break.

 

Mr. Shackelford was deeply moved. He tried to speak, but a lump arose

in his throat and choked him; so he sat in silence smoothing the hair of

his son with his hand as gently as his mother would have done.

 

"What would mother say," at length sobbed the boy.

 

Mr. Shackelford shivered as with a chill; then said brokenly: "If your

mother had lived, child, my first duty would have been to her. Now it is

to my country. Neither would your mother, it mattered not what she

thought herself, ever have asked me to violate my own conscience."

 

"Father, let us both stay at home. We can do that, you thinking as you

do, and I thinking as I do. We can love each other just the same. We can

do good by comforting those who will be stricken; and mother will look

down from heaven, and bless us. We cannot control our sympathies, but we

can our actions. We can both be truly non-combatants."

 

"Don't, Fred, don't tempt me," gasped Mr. Shackelford. "My word is

given, and a Shackelford never breaks his word. Then I cannot stand idly

by, and see my kindred made slaves. I must draw my sword for the right,

and the South has the right. Fred, the die is cast. I go in the

Confederate army--you to Europe. So say no more."

 

Fred arose, his face as pale as death, but with a look so determined, so

fixed that it seemed as if in a moment the boy had been transformed into

a man.

 

"Father," he asked, "I have always been a good son, obeying you, and

never intentionally grieving you, have I not?"

 

"You have, Fred, been a good, obedient son, God bless you!"

 

"Just before mother died," continued Fred, "she called me to her

bedside. She told me how my great-grandfather had died on Bunker Hill,

and asked me to always be true to my country. She asked me to promise

never to raise my hand against the flag. I gave her the promise. You

would not have me break that promise, father?"

 

"No, no, my son! Go to Europe, stay there until the trouble is over."

 

"She said more, father. Listen, for I believe her words to be prophetic:

'God will never prosper a nation whose chief corner-stone is human

slavery.'"

 

"Stop, Fred, stop, I can't bear it. Your mother did not understand. This

war is not waged to perpetuate slavery; it is waged to preserve the

rights of the States guaranteed to them by the Constitution."

 

"Do not deceive yourself, father; slavery has everything to do with it.

No State would have thought of seceding if it had not been for slavery.

Slavery is the sole, the only cause of the war. It is a poor cause for

noble men to give up their lives."

 

"We will not argue the question," said Mr. Shackelford, pettishly; "you

will forget your foolishness in Europe."

 

"I shall not go to Europe."

 

"What!"

 

"I shall not go to Europe."

 

"Do you dare to disobey me?"

 

"I shall not only not go to Europe, but I shall enter the army."

 

"The army! the army! What army?" asked Mr. Shackelford, dismayed.

 "The Union army."