CHAPTER VII
I Am Wounded and Captured.
The Rangers now felt that they were commanded by somebody who meant business and that there was plenty of work in store for them. After remaining in this camp another day, we started for Lebanon, in the night, where it was understood a considerable cavalry force of the enemy were camped. Reaching the town about daylight, we formed fours and charged in, being greeted by ladies, through their windows, waving handkerchiefs and cheering, with no Federal cavalry in town, they having moved to Murfreesboro during the night, in great haste, learning we were on the way.
Here at Lebanon, we found, as in nearly every town we had been in in Middle Tennessee, a strong Southern people, who, while we were camped there for two days, gave us a great feast of everything that was good, which was heartily enjoyed by the whole command. Forrest, on being interviewed as to what was next on docket, said that he was going to take Nashville, though strongly fortified, and garrisoned by an infantry force of not less than ten thousand men under General Nelson.
On the early morning of the third day, we started out on the main Nashville pike, moving along at an ordinary gait, occasionally meeting citizens, out from Nashville, saying there was great excitement among the Yankees, and they were digging additional pits and preparing a strong defense. When we reached within twelve miles of Nashville, we struck a road leading through the cedars, to La Vergne, a station between Murfreesboro and Nashville. Before reaching La Vergne, General Forrest detailed about two hundred Rangers, under Captain Ferrell, to meet and capture a train from Murfreesboro, at La Vergne, which they succeeded in doing, capturing a large number of commissioned officers, who were on their way home on furlough, and capturing also the mails and express freight. Among these prisoners I will mention the kind-hearted and excellent business man among us today, a Mr. Fordyce, of the Pierce-Fordyce Oil Association, one of the largest oil concerns doing business in Texas.
Forrest, with the balance of the command, went to work tearing up the railroad between La Vergne and Nashville, burning trestles and bridges and tearing up the track. We then again retired to McMinnville. Before leaving in front of Nashville, Colonel Forrest asked for a detail of about fifteen or twenty men, who were selected from the Rangers and joined by four or five of Morgan’s men, who happened to be along. I was one of this party, and we were all under the command of a Captain Gordon, who proved to be a reckless fellow, unfit to command such a party successfully. We crossed Cumberland River near Lebanon, in a bend called Little Dixie. Little Dixie was settled with some of the strongest Southern and most liberal people in the State, and regarded as a safe haven for the wounded Confederate soldiers, whom these good people would nourish and care for, to the extent of any character of risk. While crossing there, we promised the ladies if any of us were wounded, we would not fail to make our way back, so they could take care of us until able to join our command. Our orders from Colonel Forrest for the expedition were to collect information on the disposition of the Federal forces, preparatory to a general raid of our cavalry.
After crossing the river, we moved up towards the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, circulating through that section quite extensively, gathering information, and, on our return, we decided to capture a railroad train, with the mails from the army, which always proved very valuable, as the soldiers were always writing home on the movements of their army, which proved most valuable information for our headquarters.
In accordance with our plans, we struck the Louisville & Nashville Railroad between Woodburn and Franklin, at a point about equidistant between the two places; watering our horses at a branch within hearing of a Union man’s house, who was awakened and decided that we had about three hundred men, supposing us to be of Morgan’s command. Riding around in the branch, as we did, led him to the conclusion that we had about three hundred men. We struck the railroad about daylight, when we removed a few spikes, spreading the track, for the purpose of stopping the train and, being in a thick woods out of hearing, with no settlement near, we all laid down for a short nap. The mail train from the army was due at this point about eleven-thirty; another mail train from above was due about twelve o’clock, with numerous freight trains, carrying troops and war material, due throughout the day, also trains returning with wounded and discharged soldiers.
We heard the mail train whistle, from below, when it reached Franklin, and nothing of any other train, waiting until between three and four o’clock in the evening. I became satisfied that we were going to be caught in a trap and so told Gordon, insisting on leaving there, but Gordon refused to listen; he had just about sense enough to lose what he had. Finally, between three and four o’clock we heard the train, and immediately took position by the side of the track, having nineteen men for the fight, two of the men remaining with our horses, in the rear. All that could get trees for shelter, within twenty feet of the track took position behind trees, while eight of us, unable to find trees convenient, laid down flat on the ground. Very soon the train came up, turning a bend in the road about a half mile below us. The engineer, to fool us, put on more steam, making us think that they were entirely ignorant of our presence, and stopped right at the place we had shifted the rail. Soon they were right on us and began firing with about three hundred muskets, killing seven of our party, who were lying on the ground and jumped up, and badly wounding me, but the balance of our party, eleven strong, behind trees, with six-shooters, drove those fellows off the train on to the other side of the track. There the commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel (Blank), succeeded in forming about a hundred men in line in about twenty minutes, so he stated to me at the hospital at Bowling Green, where he made me a visit about a week after, furthermore stating that he believed if we had had about twenty-five more men we would have gotten his train. It seems that this was the first time these people were ever under fire and when under the impression that we had three hundred of Morgan’s men, they were no doubt demoralized at the noise of their own guns.
The citizen at whose house we watered our horses at the branch had spied out our exact location on the railroad, a desolate place, where Morgan’s cavalry had captured a train before. He went to Franklin, where he met the train from the army, reported three hundred of Morgan’s men, when they ran the train back to Gallatin, Tennessee, unloaded the mails and express freight and took this regiment aboard, also notifying other trains that we were on the road, which caused their delay.
While the Federals were jumping off the train on the other side, we fell back to our horses, mounting, leaving the horses belonging to the men that were killed; not knowing at the time just who was left behind. I was able to run back and mount my own horse, with the assistance of a comrade. We hurried out of there, taking the road by which we had come, by this Union man’s house, where I stopped to get me a drink of water. I had just been relieved of my pistol belt, and had grown very weak and faint from the loss of blood, which had collected in my boots, and was about to fall from the horse when I was caught by a comrade. Some one called out, “Here they come!” This aroused me. I made them hand me my pistols. We drew up in line in the lane and saw a party in the edge of the timber. Drawing our pistols we waved them at them and urged them to come on, which they didn’t do. We soon discovered that they were only parties from the train who had found our dead men’s horses and were afraid to come forward.
We now continued our march on this country road about eight or ten miles. I became too weak to travel and, satisfied that being encumbered with me would cause them all to get captured or killed, I insisted on their leaving me, believing that I was done for, anyway.
We soon reached a Mr. White’s (an humble log house) who had two sons in Breckenridge’s Brigade, and had with him his wife and daughter. He was an ardent Southern man and promised my comrades that I should have every attention, if left with them. Before leaving, I begged them to let me keep my pistols, which they failed to do, thinking it was best to leave me disarmed, as it proved to be.
My comrades then proceeded in haste to get out of that neighborhood and made for the Cumberland River, our main army then being near Chattanooga. In about an hour a citizen doctor came to see me and filled my wound full of cotton, in order to check the bleeding, saying that this was all that he could do for me; he had to hurry back home, lest he was caught giving me his attention, believing his neighbors would hang him and burn his family out of house and home, as this section of the country was inhabited by a desperate, vindictive Union people.
During the evening a young man called and claimed to be a good Rebel, saying that he had an uncle, who was also a good friend of the South, living up in the mountains, and if he could succeed in taking me there, that I would be perfectly safe. He arranged with me to come that night, with a hack, and take me to his uncle’s, which he failed to do.
Mr. White’s house was a double log house, a room at each end, with about a ten-foot hall in between, but no porch in front, a step at each room, leading out into the yard and heavy batten doors covering the door opening. Old Mr. White occupied a bed in the room with me, while his wife and daughter occupied a room at the other end. They had improvised a cot for me, in the middle of the room, so they could get around it. They used wick and tallow lamps for lights, which created a bad smell in the room and annoyed me a great deal, as I had considerable fever. Some time after midnight I begged the old man to extinguish his lamp, and very soon thereafter, I heard voices in the yard and immediately a pounding on the door with the butt end of a gun. The reader can imagine my feelings; I was satisfied they were Tories and my time had come. I would then have given a kingdom for my pistols and, no doubt, would have opened on them as they came in. They called and demanded of the old man to open the door quick. He told them to wait until he could strike a light, which he did. I was in position, from where I lay, to notice them coming in and to my great relief, saw a lieutenant and ten men in uniform, passing around me. Here was one time I was glad to see the Federal uniform. When they got up to my bunk, I feigned sleep and listened to what they had to say. The lieutenant asked the old man if I was badly hurt. He told him to turn down the sheet and he could judge for himself, when the lieutenant expressed his surprise and said, “I’m afraid we won’t be able to move him.” Now I concluded it was my time to say something. I opened my eyes and feigned bewilderment, looking up at them. The lieutenant asked, “Are you hurt much, sir?” I told them no, I did not think I was, and couldn’t understand why I had been left there. The lieutenant asked if I thought that I could stand to be hauled to Woodburn, a station about five miles from there and the first station this side of Bowling Green. I told him I was satisfied I could stand it all right. He then ordered the old gentleman to direct him where he could find feed for his horses, also to have breakfast for his men by daylight and have his own team and wagon ready to haul me to their camp at a church about four miles from there, where the balance of his regiment, the Eleventh Kentucky Mounted Infantry, were camped.
About daylight they started for their camp, with me lying on a mattress in the wagon. We reached camp in due time. The lieutenant-colonel commanding the regiment, which had been started in pursuit of our party, then stood up on the wagon wheel and questioned me as to where the balance of our party had gone. I told him they had gone up on the railroad towards Louisville, where they expected to capture a train before they returned to the army, thus directing him off their trail, as they were making great haste to cross the Cumberland River and were avoiding pursuit.
When this officer called to see me at the hospital at Bowling Green, he referred to my throwing him off my comrades’ trail, saying that he couldn’t account for accepting my statement, as he did, but “you seemed so honest in your statement, that I believed you, and committed one of the greatest blunders I was ever guilty of.”
After questioning me at this camp, he sent a sergeant and two men, with a wagon, to haul me to Woodburn, the first station, where I was lifted into a boxcar on a train for Bowling Green.
Arriving at Bowling Green I was taken up to General Judah’s headquarters, laid down on the floor of his room, surrounded by some soldiers, and he questioned me on the number of our party, what command we belonged to; he also asked if we had ever been engaged in that kind of warfare before. I told him that it had been the business of our regiment to destroy their line of communication, capture trains and everything else we were able to do to annoy the enemy, when he said, “Young man, you will never fire into another train.” I told him that I expected to fire into many an one, that this little scratch would soon get well and I would be ready for service again. He said, “Young man, we’ve got a rope for all such fellows as you.” I told him there was a higher authority than he, that would have my disposition. He said, “Who?” I told him, “President Davis.” He laughed and said, “Jeff Davis has no authority here.” I told him that I hoped it wouldn’t be long before he would have. Feeling very irritable, with a hot fever on me, I was able to resent his threat in the manner I did and felt able to talk to him, although an officer of a high rank, in resentment of his threat.
I was then taken to their regular hospital, located on Barren River, about a mile and a half from town, where I was very kindly received by the surgeon in charge, who turned out to be a very sympathetic, kind-hearted man. I was furnished a cot, the same as their other sick, in the principal ward, and had a guard detailed to stay with me all the time. This guard consisted of two men, who were on duty every alternate six hours.
Under the care of this doctor and good nurses, I soon began to recover my strength and began to hope that I would be permitted to stay there until able to travel on foot, having no doubt I could make my escape out of there, when ready.
Unfortunately the Rebel ladies of Bowling Green, learning there was a wounded Texas Ranger at the hospital, would get permission from the provost marshal to visit the sick, he supposing that they meant the Federal sick. When admitted to the wards they would come directly to my cot and deposit flowers, fruit and cake, and encourage me in the belief that I would soon get well again.
My generous, kind-hearted surgeon would sometimes send and get fish or oysters for me, evidently in the belief that he was doing a last kind act for me, as he expected me to be court martialed and sentenced to death, having frankly told me so, trying to persuade me to take the oath, which I refused to do.
As soon as I was able to sit up and talk without effort and overtaxing my strength, we had several discussions about the conduct of the war and the merits of the two armies. On one occasion I said to him, “I’m going to make an assertion, Doctor, and before I make it, I want to qualify it by stating that you have many good, patriotic men in your army and you are one of them; but, taking your army as a whole, they are an army of hirelings, fighting for their bounties and their pay, and would not hold together thirty days if their pay was stopped.” He spurned the idea, telling me that I was sadly mistaken, while there might be a few men that could be classed as hirelings, the bulk of their army were prompted only by patriotic motives and were not considering gain or pay. I said, “Doctor, I will prove my assertion right here in your presence,” and called up some convalescents. Addressing one, I asked him, “What induced you to join the army and what are you fighting for?” He said, “I am fighting for the flag and the Union,” but I said, “As a matter of fact, were you not paid a bounty?” He admitted that he had been paid six hundred dollars by his State. Then again, “What pay do you receive?” He said, “Twelve dollars per month.” “What do you do with your money?” He said, “I send it home, for safety.” “Why don’t you spend it?” “I have nothing to spend it for.” “Does your Government furnish you everything you need?” “Everything,” he said. I interrogated a second one, whose answers were about the same. I then detailed the treatment our Government had been forced to accord our army, who were frequently without pay, often without rations or clothing, especially without shoes, sometimes forced them to go barefooted, leaving their bloody tracks on the road. “Now, boys, if your Government treated you in such manner, what would you do?” They replied, “We wouldn’t fight for any such d—— Government; we would go home and stay there.” I said to the doctor, “Withdraw your pay and rations from your army and you wouldn’t hold them together for sixty days,” on which point we could not agree and he said, “Graber, you are too good a man to be engaged in such a cause.” I replied, “Doctor, that is just my opinion of you; you ought to wear the gray in place of the blue,” all of which he took in the kindliest spirit. I frequently conversed with the ward master and some of the nurses, who seemed to have taken a great fancy for me on account of my bold, outspoken sentiments, and they sympathized with me in my helpless condition.
I had concluded to try to make my escape as soon as I got strong enough to undertake walking through the woods, over a rough country across the river. There were always a number of boats tied to the river bank. I would have had no difficulty in crossing Barren River. One night a guard on duty with me was sound asleep, snoring, with his head resting on the foot of my cot and I was wide awake. The nurse on duty went over to the ward master’s bed, not far from my cot, and woke him up. He aroused himself, and the nurse in a low voice told him, “The guard is asleep; let us tell Texas to get away.” The ward master said, “No, don’t do that; you had better wake up the guard,” which he did. A little pleading on my part then would, no doubt, have had their consent, but I was still too feeble to undertake the hazard.
After spending about a month at this hospital, the provost marshal had heard of the ladies abusing his confidence and calling at my berth only, and rarely ever having a kind word for the Federal sick, so he had me moved to the prison, where I found about twenty-five or thirty men confined, most of them Morgan’s men and a few highway robbers, who sought the protection of the Confederate Government by claiming to belong to certain Confederate commands, which I was satisfied was not the case. Kentucky afforded a good territory for these highwaymen to operate, on account of this condition.
Arriving at this prison proved the commencement of my suffering and trouble, as the surgeon in charge was a brute. He came in and threw some soap and bandages at my feet and I never saw him any more.
The prison was a two-story stone building with a brick gable, with the side fronting the street; it had been a two-story residence, converted into a jail by attaching iron gratings in the large windows; it had only four rooms, two upstairs, occupied by the prisoners, and two downstairs, occupied by about twenty guards on active duty. There was also a room for the lieutenant commanding. There was a stairway, leading down into one of the rooms below, with a door at the foot of the steps. About two companies of infantry camped in the back yard, which was surrounded by a high board fence, and there was a sink in the back end of the yard. These troops were quartered in tents. The building was located diagonally across the street from a big hotel, which was occupied by the commanding officers, as headquarters.
Here I made the acquaintance of a Lieutenant Clark of Morgan’s command, whose home was Bowling Green, where he was teaching before the war. Lieutenant Clark was a brother-in-law of Captain Tom Hines, one of Morgan’s trusted lieutenants and the man that planned Morgan’s escape out of the Ohio penitentiary. Lieutenant Clark and I were both held under the same charges for court martial, Morgan’s command raiding Kentucky, destroying their line of communications and Forrest in charge of Middle Tennessee; it is hardly necessary to say that we became fast friends and plotted and planned escape, the only chance for which was frustrated.
Colonel Clarence Prentice, in conjunction with Major Kit Ousley, also of Morgan’s command, was sent into Kentucky by our War Department to recruit a regiment for the Confederate Army.
Colonel Clarence Prentice was the son of the publisher of the Louisville Courier, which was largely responsible for retaining Kentucky in the Union. The family were divided in sentiment; the father was a great Union man and particular friend of Abraham Lincoln, while Mrs. Prentice and the two sons were strongly Southern in sentiment, the sons joining the Confederate Army.
Colonel Prentice, immediately on his arrival at his home, was captured and through the influence of his father, was sent around for exchange. Major Kit Ousley was captured near Bowling Green, in citizen’s clothes, therefore treated as a spy and placed in prison with us, awaiting court martial. When Ousley was captured they found a letter on his person from Fountain Fox, whose home was in Elizabethtown, this letter stating that Fox had succeeded in raising a company of one hundred and four of the best young men of his neighborhood, ready to move at a moment’s warning. They immediately sent up and arrested Fountain Fox and placed him in prison with us.
Fountain Fox’s father also was an influential Union man, and the Fox family was divided like the Prentice family, Mrs. Fox and sons strong Southern sympathizers, and Mr. Fox a personal friend of Abraham Lincoln. When Lincoln commenced making his appointments abroad, he appointed Fountain Fox, Consul to Madrid, Spain. Consulting with his mother about the appointment, she advised him not to accept, telling him he would see the time very soon when he would blush to represent the American Government abroad. Taking his mother’s advice, he declined the appointment.
After a short time, to appease his father’s anger, he accepted a captaincy in the Home Guards, in which capacity he served about a year. On the reorganization of the regiment, he was appointed major, serving in this capacity about three or four months longer, when they were ordered to Franklin, Tennessee, to the front. He said, “Considering that all of his youth’s companions and nearly all of his schoolmates were in the Southern army, he could not go down there and fight them” and made haste to resign.
Some sixty days after his resignation he met Major Ousley some distance from Elizabethtown, out in the country. Being well acquainted with him Ousley gave Fox a commission to raise a company for the Confederate Army, and he soon wrote Ousley the letter that was found on Ousley’s person when he was captured, and which caused Fox’s arrest.
His father immediately went to see the President and secured an order for his release, provided he would take the oath of allegiance to the United States and remain north of the Mason and Dixon’s line during the war, also giving a bond of fifty thousand dollars, all of which he did, remaining in prison with us perhaps only two or three weeks. This prison was directly in charge of Major Erastus Motley, provost marshal, an old friend of Clark’s before the war and a schoolmate of Captain Hines. He, like many Kentucky officers in such position, had made himself very obnoxious by his tyrannical treatment of the families of Confederate soldiers and seemed greatly prejudiced against Clark and myself.