Press Webb, a Born Scout

  PRESS WEBB was a born scout crossed upon a highlander. He had the eyes of an eagle and the endurance of the red deer. He first taught himself coolness, and then he taught it to others. In traveling he did not travel twice the same road. Many more were like him in this—so practicing the same kind of woodcraft and cunning—until the enemy began to say: “That man Quantrell has a thousand eyes.” Press Webb was ordered to take with him one day Sim Whitsett, George Maddox, Harrison Trow and Noah Webster and hide himself anywhere in the vicinity of Kansas City that would give him a good view of the main roads leading east, and a reasonably accurate insight into the comings and going of the Federal troops. The weather was very cold. Some snow had fallen the week before and melted, and the ground was frozen again until all over the country the ground was glazed with ice and traveling was made well nigh impossible. The Guerrillas, however, prepared themselves and their horses well for the expedition. Other cavalrymen were forced to remain comparatively inactive, but Quantrell’s men were coming and going daily and killing here and there. On the march to his field of operation, Webb overtook two Kansas infantrymen five miles west of Independence194 on the old Independence road. The load under which each soldier staggered proved that their foraging expedition had been successful. One had a goose, two turkeys, a sack of dried apples, some yarn socks, a basket full of eggs and the half of a cheese; while the other, more powerful or more greedy than the first—toiled slowly homeward, carrying carefully over the slippery highway a huge bag miscellaneously filled with butter, sausages, roasted and unroasted coffee, the head of a recently killed hog, some wheaten biscuits not remarkably well cooked, more cheese and probably a peck of green Jenniton apples. As Webb and his four men rode up the foragers halted and set their loads on the ground as if to rest. Piled about them, each load was about as large as a forager. Webb remarked that they were not armed and inquired of the nearest forager—him with the dried apples—why he ventured so far from headquarters without his gun. “There is no need of a gun,” was the reply, “because the fighting rebels are all out of the country and the stay-at-homes are all subjugated. What we want we take, and we generally want a good deal.” “A blind man might see that,” Webb rather grimly replied, “but suppose some of Quantrell’s cut-throats were to ride up to you as we have done, stop to talk with you as we have done, draw out a pistol as I am doing this minute, cover you thus, and bid you surrender now195 as I do, you infernal thief and son of a thief, what would you say then?” “Say!”—and the look of simple surprise yet cool indifference which came to the Jayhawker’s face was the strongest feature of the tragedy—“what could I say but that you are the cut-throat and I am the victim? Caught fairly, I can understand the balance. Be quick.” Then the Jayhawker rose up from the midst of his spoils with a sort of quiet dignity, lifted his hat as if to let his brow feel the north wind, and faced without a tremor the pistol which covered him. “I cannot kill you so,” Webb faltered, “nor do I know whether I can kill you at all. We must take a vote first.” Then to himself: “To shoot an unarmed man, and a brave man at that, is awful.” There amid the sausages and cheese, the turkeys and the coffee grains, the dried apples and the green, five men sat down in judgment upon two. Whitsett held the hat; Webster fashioned the ballots. No arguments were had. The five self-appointed jurors were five among Quantrell’s best and bravest. In extremity they had always stood forth ready to fight to the death; in the way of killing they had done their share. The two Kansas Jayhawkers came close together as if in the final summing up they might find in the mere act of dying together some solace. One by one the196 Guerrillas put into the hat of Whitsett a piece of paper upon which was written his vote. All had voted. Harrison Trow drew forth the ballots silently. As he unfolded the first and read from it deliberately; “Death,” the younger Jayhawker blanched to his chin and put a hand on the shoulder of his comrade. The two listened to the count, with every human faculty roused and abnormally impressionable. Should any one not understanding the scene pass, they would not be able to comprehend the situation—one man standing bareheaded, solemnly, and all the eyes bent keenly forward as another man drew from a hat a dirty slip of folded paper and read therefrom something that was short like a monosyllable and sepulchral like a shroud. “Life,” said the second ballot, and “Life” said the third. The fourth was for death and made a tie. Something like the beating of a strong man’s heart might have been heard, and something as though a brave man were breathing painfully through his teeth lest a sigh escape him. Whitsett cried out: “One more ballot yet to be opened. Let it tell the tale, Trow, and make an end to this thing speedily.” Trow, with scarcely any more emotion than a surgeon has when he probes a bullet wound, unfolded the remaining slip of paper, and read, “Life”! 197 The younger Jayhawker fell upon his knees and the elder ejaculated solemnly: “Thank God, how glad my wife will be.” Webb breathed as one from whose breast a great load had been lifted and put back into its scabbard his revolver. The verdict surprised him all the more because it was so totally unexpected, and yet the two men there—Jayhawkers though they were and loaded with spoils of plundered farm houses—were as free to go as the north wind that blew or the stream that was running by. As they rode away the Guerrillas did not even suggest to one another the virtue of the parole. At the two extremities of their peculiar warfare there was either life or death. Having chosen deliberately as between the two, no middle ground was known to them. Press Webb approached to within sight of Kansas City from the old Independence road, made a complete circle about the place, as difficult as the traveling was, entered Westport notwithstanding the presence of a garrison there; heard many things told of the plans and number of the Federal forces upon the border; passed down between the Kansas river and what is now known as West Kansas City, killed three foragers and captured two six-mule wagons near the site of the present gas works; gathered up five head of excellent horses, and concealed himself for two days in the Blue Bottom, watching a somewhat notorious bawdy house198 much frequented by Federal soldiers. This kind of houses during the war, and when located upon dangerous or debatable grounds, were man traps of more or less sinister histories. Eleven women belonged to this bagnio proper, but on the night Webb stalked it and struck it, there had come five additional inmates from other quarters equally as disreputable. Altogether the male attendants numbered twenty, two lieutenants, one sergeant major, a corporal, four citizens and twelve privates from an Iowa regiment. Webb’s attacking column, not much larger than a yard stick, was composed of the original detail, four besides himself. The night was dark; the nearest timber to the house was two hundred and fifty yards. There was ice on everything. The tramping of iron shod feet over the frozen earth reverberated as artillery wheels. At the timber line Maddox suggested that one man should be left in charge of the horses, but Webb overruled the point. “No man shall stir tonight,” he argued, “except he be hunted for either war or women. The horses are safe here. Let us dismount and make them fast.” As they crept to the house in single file, a huge dog went at Harrison Trow as if he would not be denied, and barked so furiously and made so many other extravagant manifestations of rage, that a man and a woman came to the door of the house and bade199 the dog devour the disturber. Thus encouraged he leaped full at Trow’s throat and Trow shot him dead. In a moment the house emptied itself of its male occupants, who explored the darkness, found the dog with the bullet through its head, searched everywhere for the author of the act, and saw no man, nor heard any retreating steps, and so returned unsatisfied to the house, yet returned, which was a great deal. As for the Guerrillas, as soon as Trow found himself obliged to shoot or be throttled, they rushed back safely and noiselessly to their horses, mounted them and waited. A pistol shot, unless explained, is always sinister to soldiers. It is not to be denied. Fighting men never fire at nothing. This is a maxim not indigenous to the brush, nor an outcome of the philosophy of those who were there. A pistol shot says in so many words: “Something is coming, is creeping, is crawling, is about—look out!” The Federals heard this one—just as pertinent and as intelligible as any that was ever fired—but they failed to interpret aright this significant language of the ambuscade, and they suffered accordingly. Webb waited an hour in the cold, listening. No voices were heard, no skirmishers approached his position, no scouts from the house hunted further away than the lights from the windows shone, no alarm had been raised, and he dismounted with his men and again approached the house. 200 By this time it was well on to twelve o’clock. Chickens were crowing in every direction. The north wind had risen high and was blowing as a winter wind always blows when there are shelterless men abroad in a winter night. The house, a rickety frame house, was two stories high, with two windows on the north and two on the south. George Maddox looked in at one of these windows and counted fourteen men, some well advanced in liquor and some sober and silent and confidential with the women. None were vigilant. The six upstairs were neither seen nor counted. At first it was difficult to proceed upon a plan of action. All the Federals were armed, and twenty armed men holding a house against five are generally apt, whatever else may happen, to get the best of the fighting. “We cannot fire through the windows,” said Webb, “for women are in the way.” “Certainly” replied Whitsett, “we do not war upon women.” “We cannot get the drop on them,” added Trow, “because we cannot get to them.” “True again,” replied Maddox, “but I have an idea which will simplify matters amazingly. On the south there is a stable half full of plank and plunder. It will burn like pitch pine. The wind is from the north201 is strong, and it will blow away all danger from the house. Were it otherwise I would fight against the torch, for not even a badger should be turned out of its hole tonight on word of mine, much less a lot of women. See for yourself and say if the plan suits you.” They saw, endorsed the proposition, and put a match at once to the hay and to the bundles of fodder. Before the fire had increased perceptibly the five men warmed their hands and laughed. They were getting the frost out of their fingers to shoot well, they said. A delicate trigger touch is necessary to a dead shot. “Fire!” All of a sudden there was a great flare of flames, a shriek from the women and a shout from the men. The north wind drove full head upon the stable, roared as like some great wild beast in pain. The Federals rushed to the rescue. Not all caught up their arms as they hurried out—not all even were dressed. The women looked from the doors and windows of the dwelling, and thus made certain the killing that followed. Beyond the glare of the burning outhouse, and massed behind a fence fifty paces to the right of the consuming stable, the Guerrillas fired five deadly volleys into the surprised and terrified mass before them, and they scattered, panic-striken and cut to pieces,—the remnant frantically regained the sheltering mansion.   PRESS WEBB, A BORN SCOUT 203 Eight were killed where they stood about the fire; two were mortally wounded and died afterwards; one, wounded and disabled, quit the service; five, severely or slightly wounded, recovered; and four, unhurt, reported that night in Kansas City that Quantrell had attacked them with two hundred men, and had been driven off, hurt and badly worsted, after three-quarters of an hour’s fight. Press Webb and his four men did what work was done in less than five minutes.