It was a world turned upside down, where brother fought brother. But with an evil gray menace threatening the nation, could the heroism of a rag doll save the Boys in Blue against:

"The Rebel Scarecrows of Doom!"

I

A Thrilling Civil War Adventure starring John Henry, the rag doll     

                        

 

CHAPTER 1

       It seemed like we had marched a thousand miles or more since the chase began. Colonel Samuel Holmes had ordered us to follow the enemy and we did, clear across one state and into another. The boys of Holmes’ Brigade, who I had the honor to serve with, were long legged fellows who had been raised on farms in Iowa and Illinois and used to outdoor living and hardship. Holmes fondly called them his greyhounds. But the Rebs were farm boys also, a mixture of Missourians and Arkansans. They were as difficult to slow down and catch as wild hares. Holmes sent about a hundred of us 'greyhounds' forward as skirmishers, to try to make contact with the enemy and perhaps make them turn and fight, but we were always driven away.

         Many miles ahead were the raw and ragged walls of a rocky plateau, the foothills to a range of forbidding mountains. We’ve trapped them, Holmes thought, or at least slowed them down long enough for us to attack. Once cornered into these mountains he hoped the Rebs would finally turn and fight. But his celebration was short lived, because overhead, the clouds began to thicken and rumble. Within minutes, a heavy rain came down, slowing the pace of the Union Army to a crawl.

       Under the cover of rain, the Rebs scaled the plateau and easily slipped away.
By the time the Union Army arrived many hours later, the plateau, towering before them, was thick with heavy black mud. No way could man or beast scale those slippery heights. At the base of the plateau, and unseen from a distance because of trees, was a wide river. The heavy rains had turned the waters into a raging deathtrap for anyone trying to ford it.
A loyal citizen, who was familiar with the area, told Colonel Sam that the country beyond the plateau was a poor source for forage and shelter. At some point, he concluded, the enemy would have to return across the river to greener pastures or die in the mountains.
“We will wait for them to return”, Colonel Sam declared smugly, “and give ‘em a welcome back reception they’ll never forget”.

        And so Holmes Brigade settled down to wait. But rather than lolly-gag about idly, Colonel Sam put his men to work building earthworks all along the banks of the swiftly flowing river. In these works were placed large bore artillery guns.

       Then one morning, the storm clouds separated and the sun poked out its shiny face. A spy went up in a hot air balloon and looked the area over with the aid of a telescope but when he came down, it was with bad news.

     “I can’t find hide nor hair of the enemy,” the spy unhappily announced, “The mountains have swallowed them up or else they’d found another avenue of escape and gone around our flank.”

        “No, by thunder,” Holmes screeched, pulling at his hair and beard in frustration, “they’ll cross here, at this spot. I know it in my bones.”

        Samuel Holmes was using an old farmhouse as his headquarters and he was having a conference with his staff, including his chief of cavalry. I had snuck off from my pards to do a little spying of my own and I wandered into the cabin unseen.  I hid in a corner so no one could see me and I listened in on the conference.  It seemed to me that no one could agree on a course of action.

       The old chief of cavalry had the floor. “Sir, a patrol of my best horse soldiers was sent out yesterday across the river and beyond the plateau but the rains washed any trace of the enemy and it appears as if they’ve simply vanished.”

“This could have been the best campaign of my career,” Holmes croaked, “ I could have gotten my general’s star at last, but you ruined it,” he spat, “I’m surrounded by dunderheads. You boot lickers can’t find the stinking Rebs and the best advice you can give me is to withdraw.”

         “Sir, this telegram came from Sam Grant almost a week ago,” said a staff officer, “he needs our Brigade for his campaign against Vicksburg. We’ve been camped here for almost a month,” he continued, “but still no sign of the enemy. It’s obvious they’ve given us the slip.”

    “Slip, hell,” Holmes screamed in frustration. In his rage he began throwing things like his waist belt, canteen, and saber which stuck overhead in the rafters.  A boot caught the chamber pot and it crashed into the opposite wall splashing its vile contents to form an obscene painting.  I ducked out of the way in the nick of time. 

           “You old grannies let the Rebs slip through your fingers and denied me my star,” he hooted. His face was purple with rage and he pounded his fists into the wooden table till splinters flew.  “I could have been a general and this one campaign could have given me a proper command, instead of that old drunken fool, Sam Grant.”
The officers of Samuel Holmes’ staff knew it was pointless to argue with the man. Holmes had hoped to bag the vile damn Rebs before now and it appeared that chance had slipped away for good and that would mean a black mark on his record and possibly a loss in command. Suddenly there was an interruption as a skinny enlisted man in a white apron walked into the cabin. This was Donnyboy, Colonel Holmes’ personal cook, valet, and housekeeper. 

“Beg pardon, sir, but the river has quieted down enough for fishing.  The loyal citizen says that the catfish in this area are as big as wagons.”

If anything could turn Colonel Sam’s mood from dark to bright it was the prospect of fishing for cat. He had the glowing look of a boy about to skip school. 
“Men, I’ll be back in a few hours. In the meantime, I want you boys to earn your paychecks and make a plan for crossing the river to take the fight to the enemy.  Send all the nonessential equipment to the rear.  Also, get MacEye to finish boxing up all that contraband we liberated from the area so it can get sent to St. Louis. We’ll move the army in the morrow.”

               Holmes grabbed his fishing pole and leaped out of the cabin into the morning sunshine dancing and singing all the way to the riverbank. I snuck out of the cabin to rejoin my pards.  The staff officers were too busy watching Colonel Sam to notice me as I ran in the opposite direction back to the Higgy and the boys.

                  I was out of breath when I got back to where my pards had laid out their bed rolls.  Higgy was before a fire pit, salt pork and potatoes sizzling in a long handled skillet. A couple other lads hunkered nearby, shivering in their great coats and watched, with hungry eyes, the master chef at work. Higgy occasionally stirred the contents of the skillet, pausing only to drink hot coffee from an old and battered tin cup.  I had known Higgy since the war began. He is best described as the scarecrow that came out of the cornfield. Tall and thin as a washboard, with beady eyes set in a pinched face, a black handlebar mustache hung under a long Roman nose. His uniform trousers and jacket was nearly worn out; both had been patched a number of times, plus carried a variety of unidentifiable stains. The forage cap, atop a shock of black hair, might have been used to carry everything from garden vegetables to a bowel movement. E PLURIBUS UNUM was scrawled in the upturned brim of the cap.

          I was telling Higgy what had transpired at Colonel Sam’s headquarters, when suddenly a dark shadow fell over us. It was as if the sun had been blotted out.  Looking up, we saw the ugliest man mountain ever to wear stripes.  His uniform looked like it had been made from a tent.  This was Sergeant Jelly Rogers, a man as wide as he was tall with a beard so matted with bits of old food he could have dined a whole week. 

                       "Good mornin' Top Soldier," ejaculated Higgy as he unfolded himself and rose to his full height. “Had yer breakfast this morning?”

                        Instead of replying, Rogers snatched the skillet from the hot coals and poured the entire contents down his throat, grease and all.  We could only look on with sad eyes as the skillet fell at our feet, empty.

                         “Bacon could have been fried a might longer,” he decided. I gasped in outrage and took a step forward, but Higgy held me back.

                         “You a hard man, sarge”, he growled, “that was the last bit of sow belly I had.  Since our supply line got cut t’other day, we be on short rations.”

                         “Chin up,” Randy announced. “Fact is you boys is volunteering to go on a foraging detail.”

                          “Foraging?  Why this part of the state is so picked clean, a turkey buzzard would have to bring his lunch from home!”

                     “I didn’t say a word about food.  You boys are going after lumber. Lieutenant MacEye needs to box up all the loot that was ‘liberated’ from that plantation we passed through a while back”

                          "But sarge," Higgy said running a nervous hand across his mouth, "I heard a feller say he heard wagon wheels and such moving during the evening. He says the Rebel pukes might try to circle us and get us from behind."

                         "Stuff and nonsense Higgy!  Our scouts have been out for hours and haven't reported anything what-so-ever. The rabble is miles from with their tails between their legs.   Now listen Higgy,” the sergeant pointed a thick finger at us, “you collect the Bagg brothers and high tail it upstream to that sawmill.  Find some usable lumber and bring it back. Take a mule and one of the wagons. Here is a pass to get you through the picket line.”  Rogers handed Higgy a scrap of paper with the signature of Colonel Sam’s name on it.

                    "Now get the Bagg's and get over to that sawmill for that lumber!"

           With a shrug of resignation, Higgy and I left the sad faced lads at the fire pit and stepped over to where three men lay sleeping in their wool blankets with only their snores exposed to the cold weather.

                    “Help me get the Baggs woke up John Henry.” he said.  He whacked a couple of the boys with his skillet while I bit one on the ear.

           Struggling out of their blankets were the brothers Erik, Butthead, and Busco Bagg. Their mother had been a woman of questionable character, a "soiled dove" who had worked at a New Orleans bordello. The boys had no idea who their father was.  Probably one of many men she entertained during the 1844 Christmas holiday.

           The Bagg brother's all wore the same blue uniform as the Union Army, but of a description similar to Higgy’s. Instead of a military cap, the brothers had an abbreviated version of a civilian hat-low crowned with a very narrow brim. What in army slang was referred to as the "pork pie."

            Busco was tall with a long, angular face, a high forehead and sad hound dog eyes. He ran bony fingers through hair the color of wheat.  Butthead was of stockier material, thick limbed with a round Irish face. A quick smile and laughing angel eyes made him a favorite with the ladies.  Erik, on the other hand, had a quick temper to match his fiery red hair and goatee. He was doing most of the cursing as Higgy explained the wood detail.

           As the Bagg's began the work of harnessing a mule to the wagon, Higgy stepped over to where a gum blanket hung over four stacked muskets. Removing the rubberized canvas, which had kept the weather off the weapons during the night, Higgy examined the assortment of leather belts and straps that were slung over the bayonets of each musket. Cartridge boxes with slings, waist belts, wool covered canteens, and of course, tarred canvas haversacks. These were the soldiers 'traps’, so called because once the soldier had these items on his body, he felt trapped in them. 

        "John Henry, you can drive the wagon instead of roosting in my haversack.”

          

            Perhaps I should introduce and describe myself. I am John Henry, a little black rag doll who was made from the scraps of old rags.  My maker dressed me in a red stripped shirt, denim overalls and blessed me with long hair made from yarn that hung like the tentacles of an octopus. For many years I was the toy of a Negro child in Shreveport, Louisiana until a Cajun Voodoo Priestess enchanted me and brought to life.  Suffice to say I attracted the eye of an unsavory character who wanted to use me to make money.  I was kidnapped and spent years on a riverboat till the opportunity came to escape. Hiding out from the slave catchers, I joined the Pony Express, and then later served as the opening act for the Lincoln-Douglas debates.  When war broke out I volunteered for the cavalry and during one of the first battles, I was nearly captured by the old riverboat gambler who’d kidnapped me years earlier and was now an officer in the Rebel army.  During my darkest hour I was saved from unspeakable horror by a bayonet charge from a ragged bunch of mid-Western boys in blue. I was adopted and became the official mascot of Samuel Holmes’ Brigade.

          The Bagg's had finished harnessing the mule and as they pitched their gear into the back of the wagon, there came a cry of pain.  Lying in the bed of the wagon, amid the clutter and confusion of muskets and accouterments, was a sleeping soldier. The boys didn’t notice him at first because all they saw was a bunched up and burnt greatcoat and thought it was a bundle of bad laundry.         

          "Well feed me corn and watch me grow!" ejaculated Higgy.

           "It’s Corporal Fuds!" I shouted.

           "Is he dead?"

           "No just knocked out by one of the muskets landing on his noggin", said Higgy checking the man's shallow breathing and the bump on his forehead.

            Corporal Fuds had been excused from active duty because early in the campaign a wound had rendered him lame. Some claimed the wound self-inflicted, but could not be proven. A large bandage and a splint covered the lower right limb of the soldier. Underneath the mangled greatcoat, he wore the same blue uniform as the rest of the Union Army.  Instead of the fatigue or sack coat, he had on a long tailed military frock coat - the sleeves of which were rolled to the elbow exposing a very loud red checked shirt. Plus, the coat was unbuttoned, revealing a green satin vest with glass buttons. An equally gaudy purple kerchief was knotted in a bow at his throat. A slightly dented Hardee Hat lay nearby. It was fully decorated with the brim turned up on one side and fastened by a pin holding a spectacular ostrich plume.

           "Look's like he got himself some ‘Who hit John’," answered Busco as he held up an empty gin bottle,"Phoowee! He smells like he took a bath in the stuff."
           "We can't let the Top Soldier find him like this," said Higgy, "we'll just have to take him along with us and try to get him cleaned up."
           With a flick of the reins, I urged the mule westward carrying Higgy, the Bagg's, an unconscious Corporal Fuds, and yours truly, your humble narrator.

CHAPTER 2

           It had been a couple hours since we’d left the camp own our errand to the saw mill.  The top soldier told Higgy that we should go upstream about a quarter mile away, but the stream twisted back and forth until it seemed we had traveled more than twenty.  The mule was stubborn on this rough road and I had to use off-color language to show him who was the boss.  By the time we got to the saw mill the sun was high in the sky.  To our dismay, most of the structure had been torn down until only the turning paddle wheel was left.  I think the civilians tore it down so neither army could use it.  We were in no hurry to return to camp empty handed and face the wrath of the top soldier and certainly in no hurry to get into any battle. We were not cowards, but we were not eager to become heroes either, so the boys hunkered down and examined the contents of their haversacks.

           “The top soldier ate up my bacon. What you boys got to eat?” asked Higgy.

           The Bagg brothers added their meager supplies together.

            “Well Higgy,” announced Busco Bagg, “I got some dead things from the sea.”

            “I’ve got some parched corn, hardtack, and two hard boiled eggs,” said A.J.

            “And I have doodly squat!” groused Erik.  He wiggled two fingers through a hole in the bottom of his haversack where everything had apparently fallen out.

             “Buck up boys,” declared Higgy,” I have coffee beans. Nothing cures the soul of the inner man like a cup of hot joe.  Now you boys get a small fire going while I draw some water from the stream.

                 Higgy asked me to grind up the coffee, which I was happy to oblige.  The beans were in his tin cup and I spent the better part of ten minutes jumping up and down on them until they were reduced to a fine powder.  By then the Baggs had a decent fire going and the coffee was put on to boil.  Meanwhile, Corporal Fuds had woken up and was wandering along the riverbank looking for a place to empty his stomach.

                 While the boys were enjoying their meager breakfast and Fuds was feeding the raccoons, I took a turn around the old foundation of the saw mill.  Like I’d said earlier, the structure had been torn down, but the base was intact, it being made of stone blocks probably quarried from someplace upstream.  A closer examination revealed that the foundation sank several feet below ground.  Stone steps led below into a dank chamber, the walls wet with moisture.  As I made my way down the steps into this basement, a vile smell rose up into my nostrils of bad food and something unwashed.  There was movement in the darkness and the sound of something pointed being drug across the stone wall.  I jumped back in alarm as a figure appeared in front of me, clutching a sharpened stick in his gnarled fist.

                I screamed for help as the creature reached out for me.  Within moments, Higgy and the Baggs leapt into action, jumped down into the foundation and quickly subdued the strange figure.  They dragged the creature out into the daylight where we could see that it was a man in a Confederate uniform.

                He was an old fellow, I guess, around Higgy’s age.  He was without a hat and his hair was slightly mussed up.  Wrinkles creased his face like a map, but a trim gray goatee indicated that he’d taken some care with it, plus it still had a scent as if he’d dabbed rosewater on it. Despite the fact that he had a bayonet pointed at his Adam’s apple, the Reb appeared undisturbed and perhaps distracted by something else.

                “Easy boys!  I didn’t mean to scare the wee man,” he stammered, “I thought it was a possum or possibly a pole cat. You boys have scared off all the game in the area and I hadn’t had a decent meal in days.”

The boys escorted the soldier to the wagon where they commenced to interrogate him.

                 “Who are you and why are you away from your army?” asked Higgy.

                  “I am Major John Beck, 9^th Texas Cavalry. Kindly treat me with some courtesy due my rank.”

                 The boys stepped back and lowered their weapons.  Major Beck smoothed out the wrinkles from his coat and made an attempt to comb his hair.

                  “I was with a group of horse soldiers at the rear of the army when your cavalry attacked,” he muttered through blackened teeth.  “They scattered us from Hell to breakfast and in the confusion I got lost.”

                  “Where is your horse, Sergeant?”

                  “The only way I could see to avoid capture by the vile damn Yankees, no offense, was to try to cross the river. It was risky because the river was a ragging deathtrap.  Somehow I made it, but my horse drowned and all my belongings washed downstream with it.  Since then I’ve been hiding in the old saw mill for longer than I can remember, living off field mice and ground squirrels, when I can catch ‘em.”

             “That’s some tall tale Major, not that I believe it,” groused Erik.

              “I don’t give a damn if you believe it or not.  You’re obligated to escort me to your commander, kill me, or let me go.”

              “Ha!  You think we’re a bunch of buttheads?” interrupted Butthead Bagg, “If we let you go you’ll tell the enemy where we are camped.”

               The Major threw his head back and laughed.

             “You are a bunch of buttheads!  We have our own spies. Of course you’re still along the river bank. Your commander is like a dog with his favorite bone.  We anticipated this inactivity of his and that’ll give us time to get out of the hills. ”

           The brothers and Higgy looked at each other in bewilderment.

            “Why would you make this confession?” I asked.

            “While you boys are chasing shadows in this hellhole, we’ll be on our way to help our boys at Vicksburg. With Holmes Brigade occupied and out of the way, we can rescue our boys and send Grant packing with his tail between his legs”

            The Major continued to laugh.

            “Besides, you boys are in no position to do anything about it.”

             I was eying the man with some suspicion and noticed what appeared to be something sewn in the lining of his jacket. 

                “Higgy, that man has something sewn in the lining of his jacket!”

                “Ain’t nothing but my Bible,” the soldier pleaded.

               “We shall see,” Higgy took his clasp knife and made quick work of the stitching.  Out fell a water proof packet.  Inside the packet was the New Testament.

                  “See I told you!”

                  Higgy was about to hand the New Testament back to the Confederate soldier, when something fell out between the pages.  The book had been hollowed out and inside was three cigars and a handwritten note.

                  Higgy handed the cigars to the Bagg brothers while he studied the note. I looked over Higgy’s shoulder and saw that it was a hand drawn map showing the troop placement of Colonel Sam’s entire army and the movement of encirclement proposed by the Confederates.

                “I thought you said that ya’ll were gonna sneak off and join the fight at Vicksburg?” I asked. “This sketch seems to indicate an attack on Holmes’ Brigade from the rear.”

                “Well, you got me by the short hairs boys!” laughed Major Beck as he continued. “Our general has had a personal grudge against Sam Holmes for a spell and wanted to give him a spanking on his bare bottom before we left the area.  That’s why our boys have been on the move since long before sunup.  They should be in position with the hour…to attack your rear. HAHA!” Major Beck clutched the sides of the wagon as his laughter caused convulsions.

                 “We must warn the boys,” I exclaimed

                 The Major scooped me and produced a knife from his boot.

                  “One false move and the doll becomes unstitched!”

                   From out of the woods came three mounted scarecrows.  I called them scarecrows because their clothing was ratty, torn, and colored with unidentifiable stains.

They were mounted on equally tired looking nags.  But the revolvers each clutched appeared in workable order and pointed right us.  Our eyes bugged out because with them and bound with rope was Corporal Fuds.

                “We found this lad emptying his bladder back in the woods,” spoke one of the scarecrows, “so we brought him along figuring he was with y’all.”

                  

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