High Twelve

An Almost
Incredible Incident

Some years ago I was told an incident by one of the actors therein which sounds unbelievable. But the narrator is one of the most truthful and unimaginative of men, a highly respected official in a prominent church in western Tennessee, whose word no person would doubt for an instant.

Moreover, the other participant was an intimate friend and neighbor, a member of the same church and of equally high repute. He is positive in his declaration that there cannot be a shadow of doubt of the accuracy of the story in which both agree to the minutest particulars. The two were made Masons in the same Lodge on the same evening, though be it noted that it was after Appomattox.

Here is the incident:

At the outbreak of the War for the Union Esek Hoffman entered the Union service as a scout and a few days later Jim Markley of the same neighborhood assumed similar duty for the Southern Confederacy. They were widely known as crack shots, both such wonderful marksman that it was always a mooted question as to which was the superior. Their admirers maintained that since each was perfect, they were equal.

One day Hoffman was scouting through an extensive swampy woods between the lines, when he discovered that a "Johnny" was doing similar duty in front of him. For three hours they maneuvered, each striving to gain a second's advantage (which would have been sufficient) over the other, but both were experts in woodcraft and failed. True there had been mutual flitting glimpses, but as they were of less than a second, neither was able to utilize them.

Suddenly Hoffman heard a call from behind a cypress:

"Hello, Esek, is that you?"

"I reckon it's you, Jim?"

"Sartin sure."

The two old friends had met in the dismal solitude, but one was a Unionist and the other a Confederate. Each, therefore, was seeking the life of the other and nothing must be allowed to interfere. But a spirit of chivalry as true as ever nerved arm of Crusader enfolded the actors in the tragedy.

"Let's tote fair, Esek," shouted the Johnny.

"I'm agreed: how'll you fix it?"

The other thought a minute.

"Let's step out from behind our trees and each p'int his gun at the other."

"That suits me."

"I'll count three and at the last word both fire."

"All right."

As he assented, Esek Hoffman moved into sight. Almost in the same instant Jim Markley imitated him. Neither was screened by so much as a twig. Tall, muscular gaunt and resolute, the Tennessee mountaineers who had been playfellows from childhood, faced each other in mortal enmity.

"Make ready, Esek!" warned Markley.

Up went the long deadly rifles, each leveled at the heart of the other. Then the Confederate called in loud, distinct, regular tones:

"One-two-three!"

The weapons cracked simultaneously, -- a listener would have declared there was but one report, -- and then each beheld a strange sight.

According to all known laws, both men should have dropped dead in the same instant, for they were unerring riflemen and had aimed to kill, but they stood erect and rigid as iron statues, without so much as a scratch. Each man had missed.

Jim Markley stood dumbfounded for a full minute. Then realizing his unpardonable slip, he uttered an oath and called:

"Don't tell any one, Esek."

"I won't: good bye."

Overwhelmed with chagrin and self-disgust, they turned their backs and strode off. They did not meet again until after the close of war when they returned to their adjoining little ruined farms. One evening while Markley was sitting on the porch of Hoffman's house, both smoking their corncob pipes, they fell into their favorite custom of talking over their war experience, Markley recalled the incident of that exchange of shots in the woods near Murfreesboro.

"I've never been able to understand it, Esek. It would've been plain 'nough if yo' had missed me, but how I came to miss yo' is too big a puzzle for me to tackle."

"That's precisely the way I've felt, Jim, all along. How-sumever, do yo' remember Surgeon Moore that served under Old Rosy?"

"Sartin; he patched me up when I war plugged in the side and yo' Yanks gathered me in. Purty decent chap that Moore and it didn't take him long to set me on my pins agin."

"I was talking to him last week in Louisville and told him 'bout that shooting bee atween us. He grirmed and said the whole thing war as plain as the nose on Your face, and yo'll 'w me to say, Jim, that one can't look in yo'r d'rection without seeing that organ."

"What's that?" demanded Markley, snatching his pipe from between his lips and glaring at his friend.

"Am yo' 'ludin' to you'r nose or our marksmanship?"

"What do I care 'bout what anyone thinks of my nose? What does he say is the reason yo' and me missed?"

"Our bullets met square and fair in the air and each smashed tother"

Jim continued to stare with the fire in his pipe dying out, until the explanation became clear. Then he solemnly remarked:

"Esek, if I want a deacon I'll be -- if I wouldn't swear!"

"The same here," replied the equally humiliated Hoffman.

"And yet," added the Union veteran thoughtfully; "if them bullets of ourn hadn'L met, Jim, whar'd you and me be this minute?"

"In Heaven, of course.

"P'raps," was the comment, with a dubious shake of the head.

The explanation named must be the true one for no other is tenable. I remember that during a snowball fight in which I took part when a boy, I saw two missiles meet and break into fragments, and it is on record that in a naval battle between a Dutch arid English frigate, a couple of cannon balls collided and were shattered to bits. No doubt that during a battle when the air is filled with thousands of flying bullets, some of them mutually destroy each other in the manner described, but not once in ten million times would it occur as it must have occurred between Esek Hoffman and Jim Markley.