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 CHAPTER XII

SKULKER CHASING

Hunting Bad Men—Deserter-Catching in the Southern Mountains—Tricks of the Slacker's Trade—Running Down Unwilling Patriots—Some A. P. L. Adventures—Death of a Deserter—How a Southern Ranger Brings Them In.

One of the earliest recollections of the writer's boyhood is that of seeing his father busily engaged in molding bullets for his rifle on a certain Sunday morning—at that time the old muzzle-loading rifle was still in use. The old gentleman was with the Army Recruiting Service in the Civil War, in a branch which at times was obliged to look after men who were evading the draft or unduly prolonging their furloughs, or who belonged to that detested group of conscientious objectors and obstructionists who at that time bore the local name of "Copperheads." Some of these men had ambushed and killed two of the Army men sent out to bring them in, and as others of the force then took up the matter, it was deemed wise to be alert and well armed. The murderers were duly apprehended and dealt with.

At that time we had a United States Secret Service whose annals make interesting reading to-day—as, for instance, the burial by Secret Service men of the body of John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Lincoln. That final resting place to this day is known to very few men. There was, however, in Civil War times no Military Intelligence Division, no censorship of the mails or cables, no real system of espionage, and certainly no A. P. L. We had less need then than now for such extensions of the arm of Justice, because then each army was fighting an honorable foe—though both were mistaken foes—and be -because our country then was not populated so largely with