Part II

Peyton Farquhar was a well to do planter, of an old and highly

respected Alabama family. Being a slave owner and like other slave

owners a politician, he was naturally an original secessionist and

ardently devoted to the Southern cause. Circumstances of an imperious

nature, which it is unnecessary to relate here, had prevented him from

taking service with that gallant army which had fought the disastrous

campaigns ending with the fall of Corinth, and he chafed under the

inglorious restraint, longing for the release of his energies, the

larger life of the soldier, the opportunity for distinction. That

opportunity, he felt, would come, as it comes to all in wartime.

Meanwhile he did what he could. No service was too humble for him to

perform in the aid of the South, no adventure too perilous for him to

undertake if consistent with the character of a civilian who was at

heart a soldier, and who in good faith and without too much

qualification assented to at least a part of the frankly villainous

dictum that all is fair in love and war.

One evening while Farquhar and his wife were sitting on a rustic bench

near the entrance to his grounds, a gray-clad soldier rode up to the

gate and asked for a drink of water. Mrs. Farquhar was only too happy

to serve him with her own white hands. While she was fetching the water

her husband approached the dusty horseman and inquired eagerly for news

from the front.

“The Yanks are repairing the railroads,” said the man, “and are getting

ready for another advance. They have reached the Owl Creek bridge, put

it in order and built a stockade on the north bank. The commandant has

issued an order, which is posted everywhere, declaring that any

civilian caught interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels, or

trains will be summarily hanged. I saw the order.”

“How far is it to the Owl Creek bridge?” Farquhar asked.

“About thirty miles.”

“Is there no force on this side of the creek?”

“Only a picket post half a mile out, on the railroad, and a single

sentinel at this end of the bridge.”

“Suppose a man—a civilian and student of hanging—should elude the

picket post and perhaps get the better of the sentinel,” said Farquhar,

smiling, “what could he accomplish?”

The soldier reflected. “I was there a month ago,” he replied. “I

observed that the flood of last winter had lodged a great quantity of

driftwood against the wooden pier at this end of the bridge. It is now

dry and would burn like tinder.”

The lady had now brought the water, which the soldier drank. He thanked

her ceremoniously, bowed to her husband and rode away. An hour later,

after nightfall, he repassed the plantation, going northward in the

direction from which he had come. He was a Federal scout.