by John Babb
The story described Anderson and Quantrill’s raid on Lawrence, Kansas in August of 1863, when they had killed every male resident of the city they could find. That was old news to B. F., for everyone had heard that story. However, there were also more recent events in the article that were every bit as heinous.
In Olathe, Kansas, Anderson and his men were heard to brag that they had been shooting down Kansas settlers “like so many hogs.” And in September, Anderson and his gang had ambushed 150 Union cavalrymen outside Centralia, Missouri. All the cavalrymen were found shot through the head, scalped, bayoneted several times, and many had their ears and noses “and other parts” cut off.
The Union Army had decided it was time to get even, tracked down his gang, and set up an ambush of their own on October 26 near the little town of Orick, Missouri. Anderson was finally killed while making a wild, solitary charge past the Union positions—in his own signature style—with reins held in his teeth and pistols blazing from both hands, when a bullet struck him in the forehead. They then leaned him upright in a chair for the enclosed picture. But in their own eye-for-an-eye message, they cut off his head and stuck it on a telegraph pole so every passerby would see what came to bushwhackers.
But what kept B. F. going back to the article time after time was the picture. He was almost in shock to acknowledge to himself that the man in the paper—Bloody Bill Anderson—was none other than the sullen man he knew only as Major William Anderson in Galveston. Was it possible that he had been providing goods to bushwhackers—even to the likes of men like Quantrill and Bloody Bill? Were Todd and McCorkle connected to the Third Texas Cavalry, or had that been a lie as well? At what time over the last three years had he stopped dealing with true representatives of the Confederacy, and started dealing with bushwhackers? At that point forward, could he have simply been running the blockade for the benefit of common criminals—even murderers?
He could not—would not—tell Gali what he suspected to be true. He couldn’t share this evil burden with Gali, or with anyone. The bad judgment had been his alone. The realization tore at his sense of right and wrong, at the way he felt about himself as an honorable person. How could this be? He was naturally embarrassed that he had been hoodwinked, but worse, ashamed of just about everything he had done for the past four years. With one last sickening look, he put the newspaper into the small fireplace in his room and watched it disappear into the flames.
In February, he miraculously received a letter from Waynesville, Missouri. He opened it and read the signature first. It was from his Cousin Sue, who he had not seen or heard from in almost sixteen years.
Mr. Finnerty had moved them to Waynesville some ten years previously. They had sold the two small farms in Indiana and were able to buy a much larger place in Missouri. The next sentences were painful to read.
Momma died last April, and she continued to wish to her grave that her wandering nephew would come back home. We got two letters from you about four years ago that were sent to us by one of our old neighbors back in Jeffersonville. I guess it’s a miracle that we got them at all. But you didn’t give us a return address. We wanted so badly to write to you Ben, particularly when Momma took to her bed, but could not. After she died, Mr. Finnerty gradually just wasted away, and one day last July he fell off a windmill in the pasture and broke his neck. But I think it was grief that killed him.
You mentioned that you had never been able to find your pa in California. You must not have known that he never got there. He actually came back home only two or three days after you left. Mr. Finnerty went over to talk to him, and told him you had left to go to California to catch up with him. He figured your pa would head out to try and find you and bring you back home, but apparently his wife convinced him not to. He ended up taking a job working on a steamboat between Louisville and New Orleans, and the last I knew, he was still coming home to Jeffersonville every other week. Of course, that was long before the war.
Sue was now alone, but apparently not for long. She had met a man—Matt Durham—who had come to Waynesville to purchase Mr. Finnerty’s two quarter horses after he died. Good horses were almost non-existent in Missouri at this point in the war, as most had been “appropriated” by the Union Army, the Missouri Militia, the Rebels, or the bushwhackers. For the two armies, appropriated meant “what used to be yours now belongs to the government, and I’m gonna give you a piece of paper that we both know is probably worthless.” But for the Militia and the bushwhackers, it simply meant “or else.”
Sue and Matt had continued to write to one another for several months, and now they were to be married in August in some place called Keetsville, Missouri. Apparently, Matt’s father was a magistrate in the county, and they were well thought of. She went on in her letter.
I have no family in this world except you. Would you consider coming to my wedding and standing up with me? They say this war will be over soon, and if that’s true, I hope you’ll come.
Matt says to tell you there’s plenty of good land on the prairie around Keetsville—lots of grazing, and good, clear spring water everywhere. The war has been hard on folks down there, and good land can be had for fifteen dollars an acre. The town is about halfway between Springfield, Missouri and Fayetteville, Arkansas on the Wire Road. If you can come, the wedding is on August 3rd, and will be at Matt’s father’s home. His place is right on the Wire Road, about a quarter mile to the north of the Keetsville stage stop.
I do hope you can come. Oh, and there’s a girl I want you to meet—my best friend, Crocia Rayl.
Love, Sue
B. F. read the letter through twice more. Somehow it was hard to think of Sue as anything beyond the three-year-old little girl he had last seen in Indiana. Now she was ready to get married—and wanted him to be there with her. For the first time in months, he had something to look forward to. He decided if the war ended in time, he would go.
He talked to Gali, asking if he would like to go along.
“B. F., I think there is no place for a man who looks like me in your country after the war. I think it may be twenty years before a man with Negro blood is accepted as an equal in the United States.”
“I hope you’re wrong, Gali, but I do understand your feelings. I just want you to know, I never had a better friend.”
“Ah, then now would be a good time for me to tell you something. Do you remember a Portuguese ship captain by the name of Gomes de Carmona?”
“Sure. We did a lot of business with him.”
“Yes, and that is why I must take this seriously. Captain Carmona says he is positive he saw Captain Pesca in Freeport just two weeks ago.”
“What? But that’s. . . .”
“Impossible? Yes, but Captain Carmona says he saw Pesca—or his twin brother—in The Britisher Hotel in Freeport. He says he believes Pesca did not see him.”
“That’s the same hotel he and I stayed in on my last trip. All of us shed a lot of tears over that man. And now he is not only alive, but it appears he is also a back-stabber and a thief.”
After four years, Gali could read his friend very well. “B. F., I did not tell you this to have you try to go after Captain Pesca. You are but one man, and he may have an entire crew at his disposal. Also, in a British port, if you kill him they will put you in prison and throw away the key. You must not even think of such a thing.”
“Í lost seventy thousand dollars in goods and a twenty thousand dollar ship—all because of Captain Pesca. What authorities do I report that to? I don’t know who he betrayed me to, or even what country he betrayed me to. Nobody is going to do anything about it, unless I do.”
“I wish I had not told you.”
B.F’s. second reason to visit Freeport, besides finding Pesca, was to convert his holdings into something he could travel with. In São Luís he obtained a letter of credit valued in one of the few world currencies that remained dependably stable—the British pound sterling—which was directly pegged to the value of silver. He carried
his letter for fifty-three thousand pounds sterling, along with $1,000 in gold British sovereigns. When he arrived in the Bahamas, he deposited the letter of credit in a Bank of Britain and had a letter of credit reissued on the British bank. He had much greater confidence in his ability to convert a British document into cash when he finally arrived back in the United States.
His first act in preparing for his arrival was to shave his beard. Certainly Pesca had never seen him without a beard, in fact he had not seen himself without hair on his face for at least six years. Perhaps he wouldn’t pass a close inspection, but he doubted that he would be identified at a distance. He began to very cautiously make inquiries at the Britisher as well as other hotels that catered to a customer with real money to spend. And very early in the mornings, he also visited the docks, looking for his ship.
For three weeks, he accomplished not much more than sprinkling money around to pay for information. He began to suspect that Pesca was long gone. It was in this environment that a bundle of newspapers from Washington were delivered in Freeport. At least one of the papers was dated April 10, 1865 and had three-inch headlines Lee Surrenders to Grant. The story was penned from a place called Appomattox, Virginia, and went on to opine that the war would surely soon be over, after upward of six hundred thousand deaths and one million casualties.
As the paper was read around the hotel drawing room, B. F. watched the other men sitting at the tables. He noticed only a single man in the room was cheered by the news. He could imagine that the others were suddenly wondering what in the world they were going to do with a ship load of munitions or Confederate clothing for sale. Others were undoubtedly dealing with the realization that the hundreds of thousands of dollars of Confederate scrip they were holding may now be completely and utterly worthless. The twenty or so other men in the room would immediately be seeking any available market for their shipments, and probably their ships as well. He realized he might very well have been in exactly the same situation if he still had owned a ship.
B. F. was briefly tempted to make a rock-bottom offer on a ship but had enough sense to reflect. After all, the market was now gone. Most in the south would be drowning in poverty; their currency worthless; their cities, businesses, and farms in ruins; and a returning army of tens of thousands of men who had no money, no employment, and no prospects. Their only common possession would be a memory seared with visions they would never be able to forget.
He also realized that if Pesca was not already in Freeport—and he had begun to doubt that he was—then given the war news, there would be little reason for him to sail there. His quest for revenge was going to be frustrated as a result of the end of the war. However, the end of the conflict was definitely in sight, as he couldn’t imagine that the other Confederate commanders would continue to fight much longer now that the Army of Northern Virginia was done. Apparently, he would now have an opportunity to go to a wedding.
Thirty-Nine
The Worst Hole In All The Country
The Mississippi River 1865
Journal Entry—July 15, 1865
I’m surprised to see that the Port of New Orleans is almost deserted, particularly when compared to Freeport, Havana, and São Luís. The harbor pilot came on board about an hour ago to guide us in a zig-zag path around the tops of at least a half-dozen ships’ masts that are visible just above the water line in the harbor. Apparently all of them were early victims of the Yankee blockade. I can’t help but wonder how many more are just out of sight underwater, but close enough to the surface to rip the bottom out of this packet steamer I’m riding on.
There appears to be very little commerce being carried out on the docks, and this is also surprising, given that New Orleans has been in Union hands for most of the war. I wonder how long it will take before this city returns to its former prominence? Today it looks like that may be a long time off. Only a small number of Yankee troops are visible from the waterfront. Perhaps the majority are already being relieved, and headed toward family and home.
He had made friends with the ship captain early in their journey, especially after the man learned B. F. had been on steamboats sixteen years earlier on the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri. So B. F. was standing in the pilot house with Captain José Belardo, with the harbor pilot at the wheel. The height of the pilot house allowed them a view over the top of the embankment along the river. On the left was a large area of statues, standing stones, and crypts. “What is this called, Captain? It appears to be a cemetery of some kind.”
“It is called the City of the Dead. The bodies are buried above the ground in those stone crypts. It is impossible to dig more than a foot or two without striking water in much of New Orleans. In fact, only the slave levee prevents the river from flooding the whole area.
“The City of the Dead is very old. The oldest stone there is dated 1787—just after your American Revolution. There are others that look even older, but there is no date.”
B. F. couldn’t help but wonder how many untold stories there were in the hundred acres of the City of the Dead.
After conferring with an agent on the dock about the most appropriate way to travel to southwestern Missouri, B. F. booked passage on a river steamer bound for St. Louis. Most conversation on board dealt with the long, gradual ending of the war. Robert E. Lee had begun the process in early April, followed by the surrender of General Joe Johnston to General Sherman in North Carolina later that month. Then General Richard Taylor, the son of Zachary Taylor, surrendered in Alabama in May, and then General Edmund Smith of the Confederate Department of the Trans-Mississippi Army in June.
In answer to B. F.’s earlier question, there were four hundred recently mustered-out troops on the boat with him. Although some fifty of them had injuries that were disabling, spirits were high on the steamer, and B. F. did not have the luxury of a full night’s sleep during his entire week on board. The troops on board passed the time by singing and telling stories. The few Confederate troops seemed to never tire of singing a favorite ditty, which was apparently named after the boiled peanuts they had been forced to rely on as their only source of food for weeks on end. They called it Goober Peas.
Sitting by the roadside on a summer’s day
Chatting with my mess mates, passing time away
Lying in the shadows, underneath the trees,
Goodness, how delicious, eating goober peas.
When a horse-man passes, the soldiers have a rule
To cry out their loudest, “Mister, where’s yer mule?”
But another custom, enchanting-er than these
Is wearing out your grinders, eating goober peas.
Just before the battle, the General hears a row,
He says, the Yanks are coming, I hear their rifles now.
He turns around in wonder, and what d’ya think he sees?
The Georgia Militia, eating goober peas.
I think my song has lasted almost long enough
The subject is interesting, but the rhyme is sorta rough.
I wish the war was over, so free from rags and fleas,
We’d kiss our wives and sweethearts, and gobble goober peas.
B. F. disembarked in Cape Girardeau, Missouri and sought out a stagecoach company to carry him westward. If New Orleans had been damaged, this little town was a sad place indeed. Other than the single steamship, there didn’t appear to be anything going on at all. Small groups of men stood on street corners, almost all in the classic grayish-brown uniform of the Confederate soldier used toward the end of the war. Their uniforms were generically described as “butternut,” but in many troops, no two uniforms were exactly the same color. The dyeing process involved boiling a large number of butternut or walnut husks in a pot and then soaking clothing in that mixture which was to be converted into uniform wear. Not only did no single pot of boiling dye have an equivalent amount of husks in the mixture, but different materials accepted the dye in different ways.
Hence, the men who stared hard
at B. F. in his well-tailored clothing, as he walked from the dock to the stagecoach stop, were all the same but still with a discernible difference. As he approached the stop, a coach pulled up from the west. Among the dusty passengers who disembarked was a Union lieutenant about his age, so B. F. struck up a conversation to see if he could get some information about his destination. “Lieutenant, where have you come from?”
“About a hunnert miles the other side of polite society. God-forsaken place called Cassville, Missouri.”
“Whereabouts is Cassville?”
“You take this stage to Springfield, and then transfer to the Fayetteville-bound stage down the Wire Road.”
“You ever hear of a place called Keetsville?”
The soldier raised the brim of his hat and squinted at him. “There ain’t no way a man that looks and sounds like you lives in Keetsville.”
“I don’t live there, but I’m headed there for a wedding.”
“Take some friendly advice, friend. Don’t go!”
“Why do you say that?”
“I was quartered in Cassville for the last three years. Just under five hundred of us the last year or so. That Keetsville was about nine miles to the southwest. The whole area was full o’ them Scots-Irish. I guarantee you the first thing those people did when they come to that country, was build their cabins and a little church, set up their stills and raise a barn to play their devilish music. It’s no wonder the whole county was infested with Rebs and Bushwhackers. Even the women was Secesh!”
B. F. was puzzled at that. “Secesh?”
“Sorry. We just used it as a short term for all these Secessionists. Anyways, sit down here and I’ll tell you a story about Keetsville. That stage ain’t heading back to Springfield for another hour or so.” They both sat on the edge of the plank sidewalk, their boots dangling in the dust of the street.
“General Schofield took Cassville in the fall of 1862 and put up his officers in the courthouse. They dug a good trench all around it and turned it into a decent enough fort. The General busted out portholes in the walls of the second floor and put eight cannon up there. Nobody budged us outa that courthouse for the rest of the war.