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Updated: May 21, 2025
The few Union men there were in and around Mooreville would never dare trouble his folks, and the Yankees would not be able to penetrate so far into the Confederacy.
"And if you will postpone the drill for half an hour I will ride into town and attend to it at once. It's the only thing we can do and keep out of the Confederate army. Dog-gone the Confederacy. The State is the one I want to serve." Rodney rode into Mooreville at a gallop, wrote out the dispatch and stood at the desk while Drummond, the operator, sent it off.
Of course they were anxious to know how matters stood in Louisiana, and Rodney could truthfully say that the Union men were so very careful to keep their opinions to themselves that they were known only to their most trusted friends. He had heard that there were a good many of them in and around Mooreville, but had never had the luck to meet any.
His own term of service would soon expire, and he hoped he should reach home in time to see Tom march out with the first squad of conscripts that left Mooreville; but as Dick proceeded to read the abstract of the Act as it appeared in the paper, all the while pushing the sheet farther and farther from him as his amazement and anger increased, Rodney found that the situation was not quite so amusing as he thought, and that he, Rodney Gray, was in a worse box than his friend, Tom Randolph.
Whom he expected to meet when he got there it is hard to tell, but it is certain that he felt greatly relieved when he found that the visitor was a Mooreville boy a "student" in the telegraph office.
After they left the camp their passes would be of no use to them, for it was said that the country between there and Mooreville, forty miles east of Baton Rouge, was over-run with Federal cavalry. It was hard to be "gobbled up" within two days' walk of home, but the boys put a bold face on the matter.
Rodney waited four days before he received a reply to the dispatch he sent to Dick Graham's father, and seeing that the authorities had assumed control of the wires, and the operator at Mooreville was a government spy, it was rather singular that he got it at all. It ran as follows: "Price will accept. Company officers and independent organization to remain the same."
"How did the authorities learn that the Rangers had any notion of going up the river?" asked Mr. Gray. "I am sure I don't know," answered the host. "But it was currently reported on the street yesterday afternoon that the Mooreville company had mutinied, and that the Baton Rouge Rifles might have to go out there and bring them to a sense of their duty."
During the ride through the village of Mooreville to the camp beyond, the only indications Rodney saw of the martial spirit that everywhere animated the people were the Confederate and State flags that floated over all the business houses, and the red, white and blue rosettes, which were worn principally by the women and girls.
How did he know that young Randolph was the only enemy he had in Mooreville? He looked hard at Griffin and dropped into the nearest chair. "Randolph is down on everybody who voted against him for second lieutenant," continued Griffin, "and he declared when he came home after the election that he would break up that company of Rangers if he could find any way to do it."
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