The man who will risk his life for his friends, the leader who never deserts his band, the soldier who will not escape alone, these are the men whom history has always hailed as heroes. Some of the greatest stories of devotion and courage have been those which chronicle the rescue of men from almost certain death. Courage and devotion have often opened the dark doors of dungeons, stricken the fetters from despairing prisoners and saved men doomed to death from the stake, the block and the gallows.

When the Civil War broke out, the lot of the few Union men left in the South was a hard one. The fierce passions of those days ran so high that not only was a Unionist himself liable to death and the confiscation of his property, but even his family were not safe. In 1863 there was a Georgian who assumed the name of William Morford in order to protect those of his family who lived in Georgia from the bitter hatred which his services for the Union had aroused. He was one of many devoted scouts who worked secretly and single-handed for their country, claiming no reward if they won and losing their lives on the gallows if they lost. Morford throughout 1863 was attached to the command of General Rosecrans and performed many a feat during that stormy year. It was Morford who burned an important bridge under the very eyes of a Confederate regiment sent to guard it and who, when the light from the flames made escape impossible, coolly mingled with the guards and actually received their congratulations for his bravery in attempting to put out the fire which he himself had lighted. It was Morford who single-handed captured a Confederate colonel while he was sleeping in a house surrounded by his regiment and with his staff in the next room. Morford obtained access to him under pretense of bearing an important oral dispatch from General Beauregard himself. They were left alone with an armed sentry just outside the half-opened door. Stepping to one side so that he could not be seen by the guard, Morford suddenly placed a cocked revolver close against the substantial stomach of the colonel.

"I have been sent, Colonel," he muttered sternly, "to either capture or kill you. I would rather capture you, for if I kill you I shall have to fight my way out, but it is for you to say which it shall be."

The colonel was a brave officer, but a cocked revolver against one's stomach is discouraging even for a hero. He decided instantly that he much preferred being a prisoner to being a corpse and said as much to Morford.

"Well," said the latter, still in a tone so low that the sentry could not make out the words, "I'm glad you feel that way. Get your hat and tell the guard that you're going to take me out for a talk with some of the other officers. I'll be right behind you with this revolver in my sleeve and if anything goes wrong, two bullets will go through the small of your back."

With this stimulant, the colonel arranged matters entirely to the scout's satisfaction. He led the way out of the house and through the lines, giving the countersign himself, in a somewhat shaky voice, and in a short time the two found themselves within the Union lines.

"I hope I didn't startle you too much, Colonel," said Morford, as he turned his prisoner over to the guard. "You weren't in any danger, for my revolver wasn't loaded. I didn't find it out until just as I got to your lines and I figured out that I probably wouldn't have to shoot anyway."

As this is a book for good boys and girls, it would not be proper to set down the colonel's language as he looked at the empty chambers of Morford's revolver.

Another time the scout was sent by General Rosecrans to find out whether certain steamboats were on the Hiawassee and if so, where they were located. On this trip he climbed Cumberland Mountain and on looking down over the famous Cumberland Gap, he discovered a force of Confederates who were busily engaged in fortifying the Gap so as to prevent any federal troops from passing through it. The force consisted of twenty soldiers and forty or fifty negroes who were doing the work. Morford made up his mind that it was his business as a Union scout to stop all such work. Standing out in full sight of the troop, he fired his revolver at the officer in command. The shot killed the leader's horse, and horse and man pitched over into the little troop throwing it into confusion. Morford at once fired a second time and then turning, waved his hand to an imaginary aide and shouted so that the Confederates could hear:

"Run back and tell the regiment to hurry up."

He then turned to the opposite ridge and shouted across the Gap to another imaginary force:

"Lead your men down that path and close in on 'em. Hurry up. My men will come from this side and we'll beat you down."

By this time the Confederate officer was on his feet again and started to rally his men. Morford made a rush toward them, firing his revolver as he came, waving his arms in both directions, shouting to his imaginary forces and bellowing at the top of his tremendous voice – "Come on, boys, we've got them now. Surround 'em. Don't let a man escape!"

The negro workmen felt that this was no place for neutrals and they dropped their shovels and made a rush for the mouth of the Gap. The Confederate soldiers stood for a minute, but as they saw Morford rushing toward them, they broke and followed the workmen. The scout chased them until he saw that they were well on their way and then started back along the ridge chuckling to himself over the way in which they had scattered. He laughed too soon. The Confederates had not gone far before they found out the trick which had been played upon them. They turned back and in a short time fifty men were riding along the ridge at full speed to capture the Yankee who had fooled them so. Unfortunately for Morford, he had kept to the path along the ridge which was better going, but which offered very little chance of escape, since on one side was a sheer precipice while on the other was a long, bare slope which offered no place for concealment. From the top of a little knoll he caught sight of the Confederates before they saw him. At that time they were only a half mile behind. The scout tried to escape by running far out on a rocky spur which jutted out over the Gap and which was filled with trees, hoping that he might dodge in among these, double on his pursuers and so get away. The same officer, however, whom he had unhorsed caught sight of him as he ran from one tree to another and with a tremendous shout, the whole band galloped after him at full speed. Morford had hoped that as the way led up a steep hill covered with rocks, his pursuers would have to dismount, but they were riding horses which had been bred in the mountains and which were trained to go up and down hill-paths like goats. They gained on him fast. Spreading out they cut off every chance of his escaping back to the slope or skirting their ranks. There was nothing left for him to do except to go on and on to the very edge of the precipice. The scout knew that if he were caught he would be hung on the nearest tree and that knowledge was a considerable incentive to keep ahead of his pursuers as long as possible. He ran as he had never run before and as he could follow paths too narrow for the horses, for a while he managed to hold his lead. He could see, however, that some of the band had ridden around the slope and held the whole base of the spur so that it would be only a question of time before he would be hunted out and caught. He was running now along the very edge of the precipice which dropped six hundred feet to the rocks below. The gorge narrowed until finally at one point it was not more than twenty feet wide. This was too wide, however, for the scout to clear, even if he were not wearing heavy boots and carrying a rifle. Several feet below where he stood, on the opposite shelf a hickory tree had grown out so that some of the branches extended within ten feet of his side of the gorge. Below that tree was a fissure through the rock down which a desperate man might possibly clamber. It was a slight chance, but the only one which he had. At this point he was hidden from the Confederates by a wall of rock. Without allowing himself to stop, for fear that he would lose his nerve, Morford took a run and launched himself through the air ten feet out and ten feet down against the spreading boughs of the hickory tree. He broke through them with a rush but wound his arms desperately around the bending limbs and though they bent and cracked, the tough wood held and he found himself firmly hugging the shaggy bark of the trunk with all his might. He slid down, ripping his clothes and skin, until finally his feet touched the beginning of a possible path down to the gorge. He could hear the shouts of his pursuers only a few rods away. If they had gone to the edge, nothing could have saved him, as they would have shot him down before he could have escaped, but they beat carefully through the trees and rocks for fear lest he should crawl back through their line. Without stopping to weigh his chances, Morford let himself drop from one shelf of rock to another, clinging to every little crevice and every twig and plant which he could find. Several times he thought he was gone as his feet swung off into the space below, but always he managed to get a hand-grip on some rock which held, and almost before he realized the terrible chance he had taken, he had passed down the side of the cliff and was safe around a bend in the rock which hid him from view. From there the path was easier and in a short time he found himself in the gorge far below. There he crawled carefully along behind rocks and took advantage of every bit of cover and in a few minutes was far on his way, leaving the Confederates to hunt for hours every square yard of ground on the rocky promontory whence he had come.

This was but one of many similar adventures which made the name of Morford feared and hated through the Confederate states. The most desperate as well as the most generous of his many exploits was his rescue of three fellow-scouts who were held in jail at Harrison, Tennessee, and were to be shot on May 1st. Morford was then in Chattanooga and there heard of the capture of these scouts. Chattanooga at that time was a Confederate town, although it had a number of Union residents. There did not seem to be any chance of rescuing the condemned men, yet from the minute that Morford heard that these scouts were facing death, as he had so often faced it, he made up his mind that he would rescue them if he had to do it alone.

Morford's mother's name was Kinmont and her earliest ancestor had been Kinmont Willie, celebrated in the border-wars between England and Scotland in the latter part of the sixteenth century. Many and many a time had she sung to him as a child an old Scotch ballad handed down for centuries through the family, which told of the rescue of this far-away ancestor by his leader on the night before the day fixed for his execution. In 1596 Salkeld was the deputy of Lord Scroope, the English warden of the West Marches, while the Laird of Buccleuch, the keeper of Liddesdale, guarded the Scotch border. In that year these two held meetings on the border-line of the kingdoms according to the custom of the time for the purpose of arranging differences and settling disputes. On these occasions a truce was always proclaimed from the day of the meeting until the next day at sunrise. Kinmont Willie was a follower of the Laird of Buccleuch and was hated by the Englishmen for many a deed of arms in the numerous border-raids of those times. After the conference he was returning home attended by only three or four friends when he was taken prisoner by a couple of hundred Englishmen and in spite of the truce lodged in the grim Castle of Carlisle. The Laird of Buccleuch tried first to free him by applying to the English warden and even to the Scotch embassador, but got no satisfaction from either and when at last he heard that his retainer was to be hung three days later, he took the matter into his own hands, gathered together two hundred of his men, surprised the Castle of Carlisle and rescued Kinmont Willie by force of arms. The story of this rescue is told in one of the best as well as one of the least-known of the Scotch ballads, "Kinmont Willie," the verses of which run as follows:

O have ye na heard o' the fause Sakelde?
O have ye na heard o' the keen Lord Scroope?
How they hae ta'en bauld Kinmont Willie,
On Haribee to hang him up?

They band his legs beneath the steed,
They tied his hands behind his back;
They guarded him, fivesome on each side,
And they brought him over the Liddel-rack.

Now word is gane to the bauld Keeper,
In Branksome Ha' where that he lay,
That Lord Scroope has ta'en the Kinmont Willie,
Between the hours of night and day.

He has ta'en the table wi' his hand,
He garr'd the red wine spring on hie —
"Now Christ's curse on my head," he said,
"But avenged of Lord Scroope I'll be!

"O were there war between the lands,
As well I wot that there is none,
I would slight Carlisle castell high,
Though it were builded of marble stone.

"I would set that castell in a low,
And sloken it with English blood!
There's never a man in Cumberland,
Should ken where Carlisle castell stood.

"But since nae war's between the lands,
And there is peace, and peace should be;
I'll neither harm English lad or lass,
And yet the Kinmont freed shall be!"

He has call'd him forty Marchmen bauld,
Were kinsmen to the bauld Buccleuch;
With spur on heel, and splent on spauld,
And gleuves of green, and feathers blue.

And as we cross'd the Bateable Land,
When to the English side we held,
The first o'men that we met wi',
Whae sould it be but fause Sakelde?

"Where be ye gaun, ye hunters keen?"
Quo' fause Sakelde; "come tell to me!"
"We go to hunt an English stag,
Has trespass'd on the Scots countrie."

"Where be ye gaun, ye marshal men?"
Quo' fause Sakelde; "come tell me true!"
"We go to catch a rank reiver,
Has broken faith wi' the bauld Buccleuch."

"Where are ye gaun, ye mason lads,
Wi' a' your ladders lang and hie?"
"We gang to berry a corbie's nest,
That wons not far frae Woodhouselee."

"Where be ye gaun, ye broken men?"
Quo' fause Sakelde; "come tell to me!"
Now Dickie of Dryhope led that band,
And the nevir a word of lear had he.

"Why trespass ye on the English side?
Row-footed outlaws, stand!" quo' he;
The nevir a word had Dickie to say,
Sae he thrust the lance through his fause bodie.

And when we left the Staneshaw-bank,
The wind began full loud to blaw;
But 'twas wind and weet, and fire and sleet,
When we came beneath the castle wa'.

We crept on knees, and held our breath,
Till we placed the ladders against the wa';
And sae ready was Buccleuch himsell
To mount the first before us a'.

He has ta'en the watchman by the throat,
He flung him down upon the lead —
Had there not been peace between our lands,
Upon the other side thou hadst gaed!

"Now sound out, trumpets!" quo' Buccleuch;
"Let's waken Lord Scroope right merrilie!"
Then loud the warden's trumpet blew —
"O wha dare meddle wi' me?"

Then speedilie to work we gaed,
And raised the slogan ane and a',
And cut a hole through a sheet of lead,
And so we wan to the castle ha'.

They thought King James and a' his men
Had won the house wi' bow and spear;
It was but twenty Scots and ten,
That put a thousand in sic' a stear!

Wi' coulters, and wi' forehammers,
We garr'd the bars bang merrilie,
Until we came to the inner prison,
Where Willie o' Kinmont he did lie.

And when we cam to the lower prison,
Where Willie o' Kinmont he did lie —
"O sleep ye, wake ye, Kinmont Willie,
Upon the morn that thou's to die?"

"O I sleep saft, and I wake aft,
It's lang since sleeping was fley'd frae me;
Gie my service back to my wife and bairns,
And a' gude fellows that spier for me."

Then Red Rowan has hente him up,
The starkest man in Teviotdale —
"Abide, abide now, Red Rowan,
Till of my Lord Scroope I take farewell."

"Farewell, farewell, my gude Lord Scroope!
My gude Lord Scroope, farewell!" he cried —
"I'll pay you for my lodging maill,
When first we meet on the Border side."

Then shoulder high, with shout and cry,
We bore him down the ladder lang;
At every stride Red Rowan made,
I wot the Kinmont's airns play'd clang.

"O mony a time," quo' Kinmont Willie,
"I have ridden horse baith wild and wood;
But a rougher beast than Red Rowan
I ween my legs have ne'er bestrode."

"And mony a time," quo' Kinmont Willie,
"I've prick'd a horse out oure the furs;
But since the day I back'd a steed,
I never wore sic cumbrous spurs."

We scarce had won the Staneshaw-bank,
When a' the Carlisle bells were rung,
And a thousand men on horse and foot
Cam wi' the keen Lord Scroope along.

Buccleuch has turn'd to Eden Water,
Even where it flow'd frae bank to brim,
And he has plunged in wi' a' his band,
And safely swam them through the strem.

He turn'd him on the other side,
And at Lord Scroope his glove flung he —
"If ye like na my visit in merry England,
In fair Scotland come visit me!"

"All sore astonish'd stood Lord Scroope,
He stood as still as rock of stane;
He scarcely dared to trew his eyes,
When through the water they had gone.

"He is either himsell a devil fra hell,
Or else his mother a witch maun be;
I wadna have ridden that wan water,
For a' the gowd in Christentie."

The memory of that brave rescue nearly three hundred years before, as the scout afterward told his friends, was what inspired him to save his fellow-scouts as Buccleuch had saved the first William Kinmont. By saving the lives of these three men he would pay with interest for the life of his ancestor. Shakespeare writes somewhere that the good which men do is oft buried with their bones, but that their evil deeds live on forever. No more mistaken lines have ever been written. Evil brings about its own death. No good deed is ever forgotten or ever buried. Hundreds of years later it may flash out through the dust of centuries and light the path of high endeavor.

Morford scoured Chattanooga and finally found nine men who were ready to go with him and try to rescue the condemned scouts. Leaving Chattanooga they traveled by night and hid by day in caves and thickets among the mountains. Occasionally they would meet or get word from men whom they knew to be Union sympathizers. Finally they hid on the top of Bear Mountain which towered above the river and which separated them from Harrison where was located the jail. Although they had traveled fast and far they were only just in time. The second noon after the night when they reached the mountain had been fixed for the execution. On Bear Mountain they hid in a cave which Morford himself had discovered when hunting there many years before. It could only be reached by a narrow path which ran along a shelf of rock which jutted out over a precipice three hundred feet deep. The path turned sharply and led under an enormous overhanging ledge and ended in a deep cave with a little mountain spring bubbling up on a mossy slope only ten feet wide which led up to the cave's entrance. Inside was a dry, high cavern large enough to hold fifty men. It could not be reached from above by reason of the over-hanging ledge. At that point the path stopped and where the slope ended was a sheer drop to the rocks below which extended around the farther side of the slope so that the only entrance was around the path's bend along which only one man could pass at a time. Morford reached the foot of Bear Mountain just at sunset and led his little band up the steep side by a winding deer-path, the entrance to which was concealed in a tangled thicket of green briar and could only be reached by crawling underneath the sharp thorns like snakes. The path to the cave was no place for a man with weak nerves. It was bad enough as it skirted the precipice, but where it took a sharp bend around the jutting point of rock, it narrowed to nothing more than a foothold not three inches wide. He who would pass into the cave must turn with his back to the precipice and edge his way with arms outstretched along the smooth face of the rock for nearly ten feet. The point at the turn was the worst. There it was necessary to take one foot off the ledge and grope for a tiny foothold below the path while one shuffled around the curve. It was not absolutely necessary for Morford and his men to spend the night in this cave. There were other places where they could have stayed in safety, as no one suspected their presence. Morford, however, had made up his mind to choose his men with the utmost care. It was necessary in order to save the lives of the three condemned scouts to pass through the camp of the soldiers and the ring of guards encircling the jail, break open the jail, rescue the prisoners and break out again. It was a desperate chance and Morford's only hope of success was to have men who would show absolute coolness and daring throughout the whole adventure. The nine men whom he had selected all bore a high reputation for courage, but Morford decided like Gideon of old to cut out every factor of weakness and leave only the picked men. When Gideon was chosen of God to rescue the children of Israel from the unnumbered host of Midianites and Amalekites and the other Bedouin hordes of the desert which were encamped in the great valley that lay at the hill of Moreh, he started with a force of thirty-two thousand. When this army looked down upon the innumerable hosts of the fierce desert warriors, it began to weaken and Gideon sent back twenty-two thousand soldiers who had showed signs of fear. The night before the day fixed for battle, Gideon decided to select from this ten thousand a picked band of men who would be not only brave, but watchful and ready for any emergency. As his army swarmed down to the water-hole Gideon watched the men as they drank. They had kept watch and ward on that bare sun-smitten mountain top all through the long, hot day. As they came to the water some of the thirsty men dashed forward out of the ranks and fell on their faces and lapped the water like dogs without a thought that there might be an ambush at the ford and without a care that they were lying absolutely defenseless before any enemy who might attack them. Others kneeled on their hands and knees and drank. Of the ten thousand only three hundred had bravery and self-control enough to maintain the discipline of a vigilant army. Without laying down their weapons they drank as a deer drinks, watching on every side for fear of a surprise. With one hand they scooped up the water, in the other they held fast their weapon. It was slower, but it was safer. These three hundred men Gideon chose for that band which for three thousand years has been the symbol of bravery and watchfulness. With this little force just before dawn he burst down upon the sleeping Midianites which were as the sand by the sea for multitude. The three hundred were divided into three companies. Each man carried a sword, a trumpet, and an earthenware pitcher with a lighted lamp inside. From three separate directions they rushed down upon the sleeping foe and sounded the trumpets and brake the pitchers and held the flashing lamps on high and then shouting as their watchword, "The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon," they burst into the great camp of the invaders. Roused from sleep, hearing the trumpet notes and the crash of the breaking pitchers and seeing the flash of lights from all sides and mighty voices shouting the fierce slogan, the Midianites scattered like sheep and all that great host ran and cried and fled and every man's sword was against his fellow in the darkness, and when day dawned the ground was covered with dead men, the camp was abandoned and nothing was left of that mighty army but a fringe of fugitives scattered in every direction.

It may be that some such test was in Morford's mind as the little band of nine scaled the heights of Bear Mountain. At any rate as they approached the precipice-path he halted them.

"Boys," he said, "I got word this afternoon that these scouts have only thirty-six hours to live unless we save them. The guards have been doubled. It's going to be a desperate chance to get to them and none of us may ever come back. Now if any of you fellows want to quit, the time to do it is now rather than later. I'm going to lead the way along the path which we used to say was the best nerve-tonic in this county. If any of you fellows get discouraged and don't want to make the last turn past old Double-Trouble, why back out, go over the top of the mountain and down the other side. You know your way home and you've got provisions enough to last for the trip. Only travel fast, for those of us who are left are going to come right over the top of this mountain on the run with those scouts – if we save 'em."

With this characteristic oration, Morford started along the path, first tightening his heavy revolver belt so that it might not swing out and over-balance him at the critical moment. He was instantly followed by six others, quiet, self-contained men who like him had taken up scouting as the best way of showing their devotion to the Union. The other three hesitated a moment, looked at each other shamefacedly and then slowly followed along the dangerous route. As Morford reached Double-Trouble, he stopped and in a low voice told the next man how to put one foot out into space and search for the little foothold which jutted out below the main path and then how to swing around that desperate curve. Slowly and with infinite caution each one of the six followed their leader and found himself safe on the slope of the cave. The seventh man listened carefully to the instructions of the man before him as to how he should round the curve and gave a gasp of horror when he found that he must balance himself on one foot on a three-inch ledge while the other was in mid-air.

"Tell General Morford," he finally said, "that I ain't no tight-rope walker. I draw the line at holdin' on like a fly, head downward over this old precipice. Anyway I don't think there's any chance to do anything and I'm goin' home."

He seemed to have voiced the exact sentiments of the other two who had sidled up and with out-stretched necks were examining in the faint light the curve around Double-Trouble. The last man spent no time in any argument.

"Good-bye, General," he called in a low voice. "Go as far as you like – but go without me."

That was the last Morford and the other six ever saw of those men. They reached home in safety after some days of wandering, but decided to choose another territory where the scouting would not be quite so strenuous. Morford and his men made themselves comfortable that night. They drank deep from the spring and then had a much-needed scrub. After a hearty meal they turned in and slept like dead men through the next day on the crisp springy moss, first rolling a big boulder against the side of Double-Trouble so that no one could pass.

Late the next afternoon they awoke and found that the path was not so bad the second time as it had been the first. Down the mountainside by the same concealed route they marched in single file and just at dark crossed the river and entered the little village of Harrison. There they were met by an old man with whom Morford had previously communicated. He had obtained by strategy the countersign which would take them through the soldiers, the guards and to the very entrance of the jail itself. Curiously enough, some Confederate officer had fixed as the countersign that very one with which Gideon had conquered so many years ago. "The Sword of Gideon" was the open sesame which would take them past the guards and unlock the gates which ringed about the doomed men. Morford accepted it as a good omen. The night before he had told his companions the old story of Gideon's test and it came to them all as a direct message that God was fighting on their side as he had fought of old against even greater odds. Morford planned to use Gideon's tactics. He decided to surprise and confuse his enemy and escape in the confusion. He tied the hands of two of his band behind their backs and with the other four marched directly to the Confederate camp, gave the countersign, and stated that he had prisoners to deliver to the jail. The sleepy sentry passed him through without any comment and they marched until they came to the high board fence with a double row of spikes on top which surrounded the prison-yard. This fence at one point touched the edge of a marsh filled with rank grass, briars and tussocks. To this point Morford had gone earlier in the evening and had bored two auger-holes in one of the boards and then with a small saw dipped in oil had carefully sawed out one of the old timbers, leaving a space just large enough to admit of a man passing through. There was only one entrance to the prison grounds which was through the main gate besides which night and day sat two guards. Morford rang at this gate and when it was opened, presented himself with his pretended prisoners. One of the guards accompanied them to the main jail toward which Morford marched with his prisoners and two men, leaving the other two behind with the remaining guard. Morford had no more than passed around the corner when these two suddenly seized the unsuspecting guard at the gate, pressed a revolver against his temple and in an instant gagged him, tied him up hand and foot with rope which they had brought and started to the jail to assist the others. Usually the jail was only guarded by the jailer and one deputy or assistant who lived there with him. To-night, however, there was a death-watch of three extra men heavily armed stationed around in the corridor in front of the cells of the condemned men. The jailer opened the door and the sentry who had accompanied Morford from the gate explained that these were two prisoners coming under guard from Chattanooga, and Morford and his men were admitted. Every detail had been planned out ahead and the prisoners tottered into the corridor in an apparently exhausted condition and approached the guards who were waiting in front of the cells, or rather cages, in which were the condemned men. Suddenly just as the supposed prisoners came close, the ropes dropped off their hands and each of said hands grasped a particularly dangerous looking revolver which was aimed directly at the heads of the astonished guards.