Those Times and These - Irvin Cobb

Cobb Irvin S. Irvin Shrewsbury

Those Times and These

THOSE TIMES AND THESE

CHAPTER I. EX-FIGHTIN BILLY

TO me and to those of my generation, Judge Priest was always Judge Priest. So he was also to most of the people of our town and our county and our judicial district. A few men of his own age mainly men who had served with him in the Big War called him Billy, right to his face, and yet a few others, men of greater age than these, spoke of him and to him as William, giving to the name that benignant and most paternal air which an octogenarian may employ in referring to one who is ten or fifteen years his junior.

I was a fairly sizable young person before ever I found out that once upon a time among his intimates the Judge had worn yet another title. Information upon this subject was imparted to me one summery afternoon by Sergeant Jimmy Bagby as we two perched in company upon the porch of the old boat-store.

I dont know what mission brought Sergeant Bagby three blocks down Franklin Street from his retail grocery establishment, unless it was that sometimes the boat-store porch was cool while the rest of the town baked. That is to say, it was cool by comparison. Little wanton breezes that strayed across the river paid fluttering visits there before they struck inland to perish miserably of heat prostration.

For the moment the Sergeant and I had the little wooden balcony to ourselves, nearly everybody else within sight and hearing having gone down the levee personally to enjoy the small excitement of seeing the stem-wheel packet Emily Foster land after successfully completing one of her regular triweekly round trips to Clarksburg and way landings.

At the blast of the Emily Fosters whistles as she rounded to and put her nose upstream preparatory to sliding in alongside the wharf, divers coloured persons of the leisure class had roused from where they napped in the shady lee of freight piles and lined up on the outer gunwales of the wharf-boat ready to catch and make fast the head-line when it should be tossed across the intervening patch of water into their volunteer hands.

Two town hacks and two town drays had coursed down the steep gravelled incline, with the draymen standing erect upon the jouncing springless beds of their drays as was their way. In the matter of maintaining a balance over rough going and around abrupt turns, no chariot racers of old could have taught them anything. Only Sergeant Bagby and I, of all in the immediate vicinity, had remained where we were. The Sergeant was not of what you could exactly call a restless nature, and I, for the moment, must have been overcome by one of those fits of languor which occasionally descend upon the adolescent manling. We two bided where we sat.

With a tinkle of her engine bells, a calling out of orders and objurgations in the professionally hoarse, professionally profane voice of her head mate and a racking, asthmatic coughing and sighing and pounding from her exhaust pipes, the Emily Foster had found her berth; and now her late passengers came streaming up the slant of the hill a lanky timberman or two, a commercial traveller most patently a commercial traveller a dressy person who looked as though he might be an advance agent for some amusement enterprise, and a family of movers, burdened with babies and bundles and accompanied by the inevitable hound dog. The commercial traveller and the suspected advance agent patronised the hacks fare twenty-five cents anywhere inside the corporate limits but the rest entered into the city afoot and sweating. At the very tail of the procession appeared our circuit judge, he being closely convoyed by his black house-boy, Jeff Poindexter, who packed the masters bulging and ancient valise with one hand and bore a small collection of law books under his other arm.

Looking much like a high-land terrapin beneath the shelter of his venerable cotton umbrella, Judge Priest toiled up the hot slant. Observed from above, only his legs were visible for the moment. We knew him, though, by his legs and also by Jeff and the umbrella. Alongside the eastern wall of the boat-store, nearmost of all buildings to the water-front, he halted in its welcome shadows to blow and to mop his streaming face with a vast square of handkerchief, and, while so engaged, glanced upward and beheld his friend, the Sergeant, beaming down upon him across the whittled banister rail.

Hello, Jimmy! he called in his high whine.

Hello, yourself! answered the Sergeant. Been somewheres or jest traveling round?

Been somewheres, vouchsafed the newly returned; been up at Livingstonport all week, settin as special judge in place of Judge Given. Hes laid up in bed with a tech of summer complaint and I went up to git his docket cleaned up fur him. Hes better now, but still puny.

You got back agin in time to light right spang in the middle of a warm spell, said Sergeant Bagby.

Well, stated Judge Priest, it aint been exactly whut youd call chilly up the river, neither. The present thaw appears to be gineral throughout this section of the country. He waved a plump arm in farewell and slowly departed from view beyond the side wail of the boat-store.

Looks like Judge Priest manages to take on a little more flesh every year he lives, said the Sergeant, who was himself no lightweight, addressing the remark in my direction. You wouldnt scursely think it to see him waddlin long, a to tin all that meat on his bones; but oncet upon a time he was mighty near ez slim ez his own ramrod and was commonly known ez little Fightin Billy. You wouldnt, now, would you?

The question I disregarded. It was the disclosure he had bared which appealed to my imagination and fired my curiosity. I said: Mr. Bagby, I never knew anybody ever called Judge Priest that?

No, you natchelly wouldnt, said the Sergeant not onless youd mebbe overheared some of us old fellers talkin amongst ourselves sometimes, with no outsiders present. It wouldnt hardly be proper, everthing considered, to be referrin in public to the presidin judge of the first judicial district of the State of Kintucky by sech a name ez that. Besides which, he aint little any more. And then, theres still another reason.

How did they ever come to call him that in the first place? I asked.

Well, young man, it makes quite a tale, said the Sergeant. With an effort he hauled out his big silver watch, looked at its face, and then wedged it back into a hidden recess under one of the overlapping creases of his waistband.

He acquired that there title at Shiloh, in the State of Tennessee, and by his own request he parted from it some three years and four months later on the banks of the Rio Grande River, in the Republic of Mexico, I bein present in pusson on both occasions. But ef youve got time to listen I reckin Ive got jest about the time to tell it to you.

Yes, sir if you please. With eagerness, I hitched my cane-bottomed chair along the porch floor to be nearer him. And then as he seemed not to have heard my assent, I undertook to prompt him. Er what were you and Judge Priest doing down in Mexico, Mr. Bagby?

Tryin to git out of the United States of America fur one thing. A little grin, almost a shamefaced grin, I thought, broke his round moist face up into fat wrinkles. He puckered his eyes in thought, looking out across the languid tawny river toward the green towhead in midstream and the cottonwoods on the far bank, a mile and more away. But I dont marvel much that you never heared the full circumstances before. Our bein down in Mexico together that time is a fact we never advertised round for common consumption neither one of us.

He withdrew his squinted gaze from the hot vista of shores and water and swung his body about to face me, thereafter punctuating his narrative with a blunted forefinger.

My command was Kings Hell Hounds. There ought to be a book written some of these days about whut all Kings Hell Hounds done en-durin of the unpleasantness itd make mighty excitin readin. But Billy and a right smart chance of the other boys frum this place, they served throughout with Company B of the Old Regiment of mounted infantry. Most of the time frum sixty-one to sixty-five I wasnt throwed with em, but jest before the end came we were all consolidated whut there was remainin of us under General Nathan Bedford Forrest down in Mississippi. Fur weeks and months before that, we knowed it was a hopeless fight we were wagin, but somehow we jest kept on. I reckin wed sort of got into the fightin habit. Fellers do, you know, sometimes, when the circumstances are favourable, ez in this case.

Well, here one mornin in April, came the word frum Virginia that Richmond had fallen, and right on top of that, that Marse Robert had had to surrender. They said, too, that Sherman had Johnston penned off somewheres down in the Carolinas, we didnt know exactly where, and that Johnston would have to give up before many days passed. In fact, he had already give up a week before we finally heared about it. So then accordin to our best information and belief, that made us the last body of organised Confederates on the east bank of the Mississippi River. Thats a thing I was always mighty proud of. Im proud of it yit.

All through them last few weeks the army was dwindlin away and dwindlin away. Every momin at roll-call thered be a few more absentees. Dont git me wrong I wouldnt call them boys deserters. Theyd stuck that long, doin their duty like men, but they knowed good and well in fact we all knowed twas only a question of time till even Forrest would have to quit before overpowerin odds and wed be called on to lay down the arms wed toted fur so long. Their families needed em, so they jest quit without sayin anything about it to anybody and went on back to their homes. This was specially true of some that lived in that district.

But with the boys frum up this way it was different. In a way of speakin, we didnt have no homes to go back to. Our State had been in Northern hands almost frum the beginnin and some of us had prices on our heads right that very minute on account of bein branded ez guerrillas. Which was a lie. But folks didnt always stop to sift out the truth then. They were prone to shoot you first and go into the merits of the case afterward. Anyway, betwixt us and home there was a tolerble thick hedge of Yankee soldiers in fact several thick hedges. You know they called one of our brigades the Orphan Brigade. And there were good reasons fur callin it so more ways than one.

I aint never goin to furgit the night of the fifth of May. Somehow the tidins got round amongst the boys that the next mornin the order to surrender was goin to be issued. The Yankee cavalry general, Wilson and he was a good peart fighter, too had us completely blocked off to the North and the East, but the road to the Southwest was still open ef anybody cared to foller it. So that night some of us held a little kind of a meetin about sixty of us mainly Kintuckians, but with a sprinklin frum other States, too.

Ez I remember, there wasnt a contrary voice raised when twas suggested we should try to make it acrost the big river and jine in under Kirby Smith, who still had whut was left of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi.

Billy Priest made the principal speech. Boys, he says, South Carolina may a-started this here war, but Kintucky has undertook the contract to close it out. Somewheres out yonder in Texas they tell me theres yit a considble stretch of unconquered Confederate territory. Speakin fur myself I dont believe Im ever goin to be able to live comfortable an reconciled under any other flag than the flag weve fit to uphold. Lets us-all go see ef we cant find the place where our flag still floats.

So we all said wed go. Then the question ariz of namin a leader. There was one man that had been a captain and a couple more that had been lieutenants, but, practically unanimously, we elected little Billy Priest. Even ef he was only jest a private in the ranks we all knowed it wasnt fur lack of chances to go higher. After Shiloh, hed refused a commission and agin after Hartsville. So, in lessen no time a-tall, that was settled, too.

Bright and early next day we started, takin our guns and our hosses with us. They were our hosses anyway; mainly wed borrowed em off Yankees, or anyways, off Yankee sympathisers on our last raid Northward and so that made em our pussonal property, the way we figgered it out. Tennyrate we didnt stop to argue the matter with nobody whutsoever. We jest packed up and we put out and we had almighty little to pack up, lemme tell you.

Ez we rid off we sung a song that was be-ginnin to be right fashionable that spring purty near every place below Mason and Dixons line; and all over the camp the rest of the boys took it up and made them old woodlands jest ring with it. It was a kind of a farewell to us. The fust verse was likewise the chorus and it run something like this:

And so on and so forth. There were several more verses all expressin much the same trend of thought, and all entirely in accordance with our own feelins fur the time bein.

Well, boy, I reckin there aint no use wastin time describin the early stages of that there pilgrimage. We went ridin along livin on the land and doin the best we could. We were young fellers, all of us, and it was springtime in Dixie you know whut that means and in spite of everything, some of the springtime got into our hearts, too, and drove part of the bitterness out. The country was all scarified with the tracks of war, but nature was doin her level best to cover up the traces of whut man had done. People along our route had mighty slim pickins fur themselves, but the sight of an old grey jacket was still mighty dear to most of em and they divided whut little they had with us and wisht they had more to give us. We didnt need much at that a few meals of vittles fur the men and a little fodder fur our hosses and wed be satisfied. Wed reduced slow starvation to an exact science long before that. Every man in the outfit was hard ez nails and slim ez a blue racer.

Whut Northern forces there was East of the river we dodged. In fact we didnt have occasion to pull our shootin-irons but oncet, and that was after wed crost over into Louisiana. There wasnt any organised military force to regulate things and in the back districts civil government had mighty near vanished altogether. People had went back to fust principles wild, reckless fust principles they were, too. One day an old woman warned us there was a gang of bushwhackers operatin down the road a piece in the direction we were headin a mixed crowd of deserters frum both sides, she said, whod jined in with some of the local bad characters and were preyin on the country, hariyin the defenceless, and terrorism women and children and raisin hob ginerally. She advised us that wed better give em a wide berth.