JAGwinn
Retired User
- Joined
- Jun 13, 2016
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- Bloomington, IL Corvette Gold
And now for something a little different...
A story, fiction of course, about a man who builds a fort in the wilderness and holds it as if the war was still ongoing....years after the ending of it.
THE LAST REBEL
BY
JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER
Author of "A Knight of Philadelphia,"
"The Sun of Saratoga," etc.
WITH FRONTISPIECE BY
ELENORE PLAISTED ABBOTT
PHILADELPHIA & LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1900
The valley lying fresh and yet green below us broadened. The coil of smoke grew into a column.
"Did you say your camp lay there?" I asked, pointing toward the valley. We had been silent hitherto.
"I did not say my camp, sir; I said my home," he replied, with some haughtiness. "Twenty yards farther, and you can see through the trees a corner of the roof of Fort Defiance."
I did not understand him. I saw no reason for his high tone, and much was strange in what he said. Yet he had the manner and bearing of a gentleman, and he had been a timely friend to me. I had no right to ask him curious questions.
He did not seem inclined to further talk, and I too was silent. But I found employment for my eyes. We were descending the first slopes of the valley,[21] and it lay before us a welcome oasis in the weary wilderness of mountains.
It must have been several miles in length and a good mile or more across. Down the centre of it flowed a creek of clear, cool water, almost big enough to call itself a river, and the thickness of the tree-trunks and the long grass browned by the autumn breath showed the fertility of the soil. Through the trees, which still retained much of their foliage, the corners of house-roofs appeared. There are many such secluded and warm little valleys in the Alleghanies, and I saw no occasion for surprise. In truth, what I saw was most welcome: it indicated the comfort of which I stood in need.
"I haven't asked you your name," said my host, suddenly.
"Arthur West," I replied.
"I would infer from your accent that you are a Northerner, a Yankee," he said, looking at me closely, and in a way I did not quite understand.
[22]
"You are right on the first point, but not on the second," I replied. "I am a Northerner, but not a Yankee. I am not from New England, but from New York City."
"It's all the same," he replied, frowning. "You're a Yankee, and I knew it from the first. We call the people of all the Northern States Yankees."
"Have it so," I replied, with a laugh. "But abroad they call us all Yankees, whether from the Northern or the Southern States."
"Luckily I never go abroad," he replied, frowning still more deeply. "You have not asked me my own name," he continued.
"No, but I confess I would like to hear it," I replied. "I wish to know whose hospitality I am about to enjoy, a hospitality for which I can never thank you too much, for if I had not met you I might have starved or frozen to death in this wilderness."
[23]
"I am Colonel John Greene Hetherill, C.S.A.," he replied.
"C.S.A.?" I said, looking at his gray uniform.
"Yes, 'C.S.A.,'" he replied. His tone was emphatic and haughty. "Confederate States of America. What have you to say against it?"
"Nothing," I replied. "I leave that to the historians."
"Who are mostly liars," he said.
He looked at me with an expression of undoubted hostility.
"I would have liked it much better had you been a Southerner and not a Yankee," he said. "How can I trust you?"
"I hope I am a gentleman," I replied. "At any rate, I am lame and in straits, and under no circumstances would I violate your hospitality."
His expression softened. He even looked at me with pity.
"Well, it's the word of a Yankee,"[24] he said, "but still—it may be the truth. Remember that on your word of honor you are to tell nothing about Fort Defiance, its approaches or its plans."
"Certainly," I said, though secretly wondering.
He seemed to be relieved of his doubts, and, descending the last slope, we walked at a brisk pace down the valley.
I was surprised at the evidences of care and cultivation, though the fat, black soil of the valley would justify all the labor that might be put upon it. The fences were good, the fields well trimmed, and we soon entered a smooth road. Everything seemed to have the neatness and precision of the proprietor, the man with whom I was walking. I looked at him again, and was struck with the evidences of long military habit; not alone his uniform, but even more decidedly his manner and bearing.
[25]
We passed some outhouses built in a better manner than I had seen elsewhere in the mountain valleys, and approached a large square building which I knew at first sight to be Fort Defiance, since it could be nothing else. It was of two stories, made of heavy logs, unhewn on the outside, the upper story projecting over the lower, after the fashion of the block-houses of the frontier time. I supposed it to be some such building, standing here after the lapse of a hundred years in all its ancient solidity and devoted now to more peaceful uses.
The valley was no less pleasant to eye than to mind. When one is sore and hungry, mountains lose their picturesqueness and grandeur; a crust and a bed are infinitely more beautiful, and this valley promised both and better. The house stood upon a hill which rose to some height and was shaped like a truncated cone. The little river flowed around three sides of the hill in a swift,[26] deep current. The fourth side I could not see, but the three washed at the base by the river were so steep a man could climb them only with great difficulty. It was a position of much natural strength, and in the old times, when rifles were the heaviest weapons used in these regions, it must have been impregnable except to surprise.
The road we were following curved around and approached the house from the south side, the side which at first had been hidden from me, and then I saw it was the only ordinary way by which one could enter Fort Defiance. But even here art had been brought to the aid of nature. A wide, deep ditch leading from the river had been carried around the south side, and the mound was completely encircled by water. We crossed the ditch on a drawbridge let down by an old man in Confederate gray like his master, though his was stained and more ancient.
[27]
Had the architecture of the fort been different, had it been stone instead of logs, I could easily have imagined myself back in some mediæval castle of Europe, and not here in the mountains of Kentucky.
The fort looked very peaceful. Smoke rose from three or four chimneys, and, drifting, finally united, floating off into the clouds. This was the lazy coil which I had seen, and which perhaps had saved my life.
We climbed some stone steps, and when I reached the top I found a little old-fashioned brass field-piece confronting me. But there was no rust on its muzzle, which looked at me with the semblance of a threat.
"One would think from your preparations, colonel, that we were in a state of war," I said, jestingly.
"Have you any weapons on you?" he asked, frowning again, and not answering my jest.
[28]
"No," I replied; "I had nothing but the rifle, and you have that."
"I will keep it for the present," he said, curtly.
We paused before a heavy door of oak. While the colonel knocked, I looked up at the overhanging edges of the second floor and saw that they were pierced for sharpshooters. But before I had time to look long, the door was opened by a man in a suit of Confederate gray, like his fellow at the drawbridge. He saluted the colonel in military fashion as the others had done, and we entered a wide hall which seemed to run the entire width of the house. Many of the old houses in Kentucky are built in this fashion. The hall was decorated, I might almost say armed, with weapons,—rifles, pistols, bayonets, swords, many of them of the most modern type. Tanned skins of bear, deer, and wolf were on the floor. Had it not been for the late style of the weapons, I[29] could have maintained the fiction that it was a castle of the Middle Ages and this the baronial hall.
He led me up a flight of steps, and opened the door of a small room on the second floor. The room contained nothing but a small table, a camp-bed, a three-legged stool, and two or three other articles of furniture equally plain. There was but a single window, and it was cross-barred heavily with iron. It looked more like a cell than a chamber. Nor did it belie its looks.
"This will be your prison for the present," said the colonel. "Lie down on the bed there and rest, and Crothers will be up in ten minutes with food for you."
"Prison!" I exclaimed, in surprise.
"Yes, prison," he repeated, "but that is all. I do not intend to deal harshly with you otherwise. You are a Yankee, and I must see that you do not meddle."
He cut short my protest by leaving[30] the room, slamming the door, and locking it. The door was so thick I could not hear his retreating footsteps. As the colonel had said, I was a prisoner, but I did not feel much alarm. I had confidence in his promise that I would come to no harm. I looked between the bars of the window, which opened upon a small space like a court. One side of the court was open and ran sheer up to the edge of the cliff, which dropped away thirty or forty feet to the river below. The torrent foamed around the mound with a tumult like a mill-race. Beyond were open fields, ending abruptly at the foot of steep and rough mountains.
the book is here: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/58617
A story, fiction of course, about a man who builds a fort in the wilderness and holds it as if the war was still ongoing....years after the ending of it.
THE LAST REBEL
BY
JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER
Author of "A Knight of Philadelphia,"
"The Sun of Saratoga," etc.
WITH FRONTISPIECE BY
ELENORE PLAISTED ABBOTT
PHILADELPHIA & LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1900
"Did you say your camp lay there?" I asked, pointing toward the valley. We had been silent hitherto.
"I did not say my camp, sir; I said my home," he replied, with some haughtiness. "Twenty yards farther, and you can see through the trees a corner of the roof of Fort Defiance."
I did not understand him. I saw no reason for his high tone, and much was strange in what he said. Yet he had the manner and bearing of a gentleman, and he had been a timely friend to me. I had no right to ask him curious questions.
He did not seem inclined to further talk, and I too was silent. But I found employment for my eyes. We were descending the first slopes of the valley,[21] and it lay before us a welcome oasis in the weary wilderness of mountains.
It must have been several miles in length and a good mile or more across. Down the centre of it flowed a creek of clear, cool water, almost big enough to call itself a river, and the thickness of the tree-trunks and the long grass browned by the autumn breath showed the fertility of the soil. Through the trees, which still retained much of their foliage, the corners of house-roofs appeared. There are many such secluded and warm little valleys in the Alleghanies, and I saw no occasion for surprise. In truth, what I saw was most welcome: it indicated the comfort of which I stood in need.
"I haven't asked you your name," said my host, suddenly.
"Arthur West," I replied.
"I would infer from your accent that you are a Northerner, a Yankee," he said, looking at me closely, and in a way I did not quite understand.
[22]
"You are right on the first point, but not on the second," I replied. "I am a Northerner, but not a Yankee. I am not from New England, but from New York City."
"It's all the same," he replied, frowning. "You're a Yankee, and I knew it from the first. We call the people of all the Northern States Yankees."
"Have it so," I replied, with a laugh. "But abroad they call us all Yankees, whether from the Northern or the Southern States."
"Luckily I never go abroad," he replied, frowning still more deeply. "You have not asked me my own name," he continued.
"No, but I confess I would like to hear it," I replied. "I wish to know whose hospitality I am about to enjoy, a hospitality for which I can never thank you too much, for if I had not met you I might have starved or frozen to death in this wilderness."
[23]
"I am Colonel John Greene Hetherill, C.S.A.," he replied.
"C.S.A.?" I said, looking at his gray uniform.
"Yes, 'C.S.A.,'" he replied. His tone was emphatic and haughty. "Confederate States of America. What have you to say against it?"
"Nothing," I replied. "I leave that to the historians."
"Who are mostly liars," he said.
He looked at me with an expression of undoubted hostility.
"I would have liked it much better had you been a Southerner and not a Yankee," he said. "How can I trust you?"
"I hope I am a gentleman," I replied. "At any rate, I am lame and in straits, and under no circumstances would I violate your hospitality."
His expression softened. He even looked at me with pity.
"Well, it's the word of a Yankee,"[24] he said, "but still—it may be the truth. Remember that on your word of honor you are to tell nothing about Fort Defiance, its approaches or its plans."
"Certainly," I said, though secretly wondering.
He seemed to be relieved of his doubts, and, descending the last slope, we walked at a brisk pace down the valley.
I was surprised at the evidences of care and cultivation, though the fat, black soil of the valley would justify all the labor that might be put upon it. The fences were good, the fields well trimmed, and we soon entered a smooth road. Everything seemed to have the neatness and precision of the proprietor, the man with whom I was walking. I looked at him again, and was struck with the evidences of long military habit; not alone his uniform, but even more decidedly his manner and bearing.
[25]
We passed some outhouses built in a better manner than I had seen elsewhere in the mountain valleys, and approached a large square building which I knew at first sight to be Fort Defiance, since it could be nothing else. It was of two stories, made of heavy logs, unhewn on the outside, the upper story projecting over the lower, after the fashion of the block-houses of the frontier time. I supposed it to be some such building, standing here after the lapse of a hundred years in all its ancient solidity and devoted now to more peaceful uses.
The valley was no less pleasant to eye than to mind. When one is sore and hungry, mountains lose their picturesqueness and grandeur; a crust and a bed are infinitely more beautiful, and this valley promised both and better. The house stood upon a hill which rose to some height and was shaped like a truncated cone. The little river flowed around three sides of the hill in a swift,[26] deep current. The fourth side I could not see, but the three washed at the base by the river were so steep a man could climb them only with great difficulty. It was a position of much natural strength, and in the old times, when rifles were the heaviest weapons used in these regions, it must have been impregnable except to surprise.
The road we were following curved around and approached the house from the south side, the side which at first had been hidden from me, and then I saw it was the only ordinary way by which one could enter Fort Defiance. But even here art had been brought to the aid of nature. A wide, deep ditch leading from the river had been carried around the south side, and the mound was completely encircled by water. We crossed the ditch on a drawbridge let down by an old man in Confederate gray like his master, though his was stained and more ancient.
[27]
Had the architecture of the fort been different, had it been stone instead of logs, I could easily have imagined myself back in some mediæval castle of Europe, and not here in the mountains of Kentucky.
The fort looked very peaceful. Smoke rose from three or four chimneys, and, drifting, finally united, floating off into the clouds. This was the lazy coil which I had seen, and which perhaps had saved my life.
We climbed some stone steps, and when I reached the top I found a little old-fashioned brass field-piece confronting me. But there was no rust on its muzzle, which looked at me with the semblance of a threat.
"One would think from your preparations, colonel, that we were in a state of war," I said, jestingly.
"Have you any weapons on you?" he asked, frowning again, and not answering my jest.
[28]
"No," I replied; "I had nothing but the rifle, and you have that."
"I will keep it for the present," he said, curtly.
We paused before a heavy door of oak. While the colonel knocked, I looked up at the overhanging edges of the second floor and saw that they were pierced for sharpshooters. But before I had time to look long, the door was opened by a man in a suit of Confederate gray, like his fellow at the drawbridge. He saluted the colonel in military fashion as the others had done, and we entered a wide hall which seemed to run the entire width of the house. Many of the old houses in Kentucky are built in this fashion. The hall was decorated, I might almost say armed, with weapons,—rifles, pistols, bayonets, swords, many of them of the most modern type. Tanned skins of bear, deer, and wolf were on the floor. Had it not been for the late style of the weapons, I[29] could have maintained the fiction that it was a castle of the Middle Ages and this the baronial hall.
He led me up a flight of steps, and opened the door of a small room on the second floor. The room contained nothing but a small table, a camp-bed, a three-legged stool, and two or three other articles of furniture equally plain. There was but a single window, and it was cross-barred heavily with iron. It looked more like a cell than a chamber. Nor did it belie its looks.
"This will be your prison for the present," said the colonel. "Lie down on the bed there and rest, and Crothers will be up in ten minutes with food for you."
"Prison!" I exclaimed, in surprise.
"Yes, prison," he repeated, "but that is all. I do not intend to deal harshly with you otherwise. You are a Yankee, and I must see that you do not meddle."
He cut short my protest by leaving[30] the room, slamming the door, and locking it. The door was so thick I could not hear his retreating footsteps. As the colonel had said, I was a prisoner, but I did not feel much alarm. I had confidence in his promise that I would come to no harm. I looked between the bars of the window, which opened upon a small space like a court. One side of the court was open and ran sheer up to the edge of the cliff, which dropped away thirty or forty feet to the river below. The torrent foamed around the mound with a tumult like a mill-race. Beyond were open fields, ending abruptly at the foot of steep and rough mountains.
the book is here: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/58617
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