“Sometimes,” she replied truthfully.
He sat forward. “Excellent.” He waved his hand at a passing associate in the hallway.
“Yes sir?” he asked, stepping into the room.
“Could you bring me the Antonia Ford file please?”
The clerk disappeared for a moment, returning with a rather large file. Stanton flipped it open. “Miss Ford is a young miscreant that seems intent on giving Union intelligence to the Confederates. Rather like Belle Boyd. Have you heard of either?”
“Just in passing,” Hattie replied. “I was supposed to be exchanged for Miss Boyd.”
Stanton set his glasses down in front of him and looked thoughtful. “Yes, if only those Confederates would have cooperated, we could have gotten you out a lot sooner.” He ran a hand through his thinning brown hair. “Miss Ford lives in Fairfax—”
“I’m sorry sir,” Hattie’s apprehension overtook her social refinement. “I don’t mean to interrupt you, but I can’t go back there.” She grasped her reticule handle. “Not so soon.”
“It’s no matter.” Stanton replaced his glasses. “We are in need of a woman to befriend Miss Ford and get her to confess her contemptible dealings. Someone with Union ties that doesn’t mind getting a little underhanded.”
Hattie leaned forward. “I know just the woman. Have you ever heard of Frankie Abel Jamison?”
Chapter 55
Mary Jane
April 1863
Richmond had become a miserable place to reside, even in the Confederate White House. The war was nearing its third anniversary and the Confederacy was floundering. Because the inland town was far away from trade routes, prices for what once had been considered necessities like flour and bacon had risen at a staggering rate.
In what was perhaps an ill-advised move, President Davis declared a day of fasting and urged Richmonders to spend the day praying for the cause instead of eating. It was spoken throughout the servants’ quarters that this might finally be the Confederacy’s undoing.
Mary Jane could picture Miss Lizzie’s lined face light up with glee upon hearing Mr. Davis’s request that his already gaunt citizens give up their sustenance for a day. But she wouldn’t get to see her mistress’s pleasure in person: ever since Mr. Garvin left, Mary Jane had been avoiding Miss Lizzie. She told Mr. McNiven during one of his deliveries that it was too risky to go to meet her at the seamstress’s now that all the servants were leaving.
“Are you in danger?” he demanded.
“I don’t think so,” Mary Jane answered truthfully. Although Jefferson Davis had admitted to Judah Benjamin he thought the Yankees were paying his servants to run away, his behavior toward Mary Jane had not changed. Nor had Mrs. Davis’s. “But I don’t want any of us to fall under suspicion.”
Mr. McNiven nodded. “I will let Ms. Van Lew know. She worries about you constantly.”
Mary Jane forced a smile. “Tell her I’m fine, just a little wary is all.”
While Mr. Davis had never been exactly what Mary Jane would call robust, his health continued to decline that spring. He’d often complain of headaches or stomachaches, and Mrs. Davis had to treat his swollen left eye with drops of mercury every evening. On days when he stayed home to work, Mary Jane would wait to clean his office until after he’d returned to his bedroom to nap. She would memorize whatever she saw in the myriad of papers on his desk and then code it in her quarters before passing it on to McNiven the next day.
One day in early April, Mrs. O’Melia asked Mary Jane to run an errand for the household. “Normally Phebe would, but seeing as she’s escaped, I need you to do it.”
Obligingly, Mary Jane, shopping list in hand, headed to Capitol Square. Right after she’d crossed Broad Street, she heard the sound of glass breaking. As she got closer she could see that the square was filled with people shouting. Mary Jane stopped short, ducking behind a building when she saw that they were brandishing weapons such as knives and hammers, some of them even holding stones in their hands. It was far enough away for her to feel safe, but close enough to discern that the townspeople were chanting, “Bread or blood!”
As if on cue, pandemonium suddenly erupted and the crowd, mostly women from Mary Jane’s vantage point, broke into stores by clobbering the locks with a hatchet or smashing the windows with rocks. They stole whatever they could get their hands on, from food to clothing to jewelry to brooms, loading them into the hundreds of awaiting carts and wagons. Mary Jane was about to leave for safety’s sake when she heard horse-hoofs coming up Seventeenth Street. She flattened herself against the doorframe upon recognizing Mr. Davis’s gaunt frame in front of a troop of soldiers.
After he passed, she crept a bit closer to see if he would have any luck ending the riot.
At first no one paid the president any heed, but then the Public Guard began arresting some of the mob, leading them into their walled cart. Those who remained stopped their raiding and grew somewhat subdued. Mr. Davis stepped onto a bench and waved his arms. Most of the crowd paused to stare.
“What has caused such a lawless act?” he asked in a loud voice.
“We are starving, sir,” one woman shouted.
He gestured to her arms, which were full of boots and candles. “Those will not feed your family.”
“Get us back into the Union!” a man’s voice called. “We are tired of the Confederacy’s depriving us of basic needs.”
Mr. Davis dug into his pockets and pulled out a wad of cash. “This is all I have, but I will give it to you.” He threw it up into the air as people dropped their goods to retrieve the money.
Mr. Davis cupped his empty hands around his mouth and called in his loudest voice, “You have five minutes to disperse or you will be fired upon.” The soldiers who stood guard around him fixed their bayonets.
Mary Jane decided to leave at that point. The crowd must have decided to heed the president’s orders as she did not hear any gunshots on her way back to the Confederate White House.
That evening, select members of the Confederate Cabinet met with Mr. Davis in the executive dining room to discuss the bread riot. The new Secretary of War, James Seddon, urged Mr. Davis to keep the “god-awful disorderliness” of a few people out of the papers. “We wouldn’t want the Yanks to hear of our misfortunes here in Richmond,” Mr. Seddon insisted.
Another Cabinet member concurred. “The Yanks themselves were the ones who probably started it all in the first place.”
As she walked to the outbuilding that night, Mary Jane speculated that hearing of the riots over bread might boost morale in the Union—the starving Southerners surely couldn’t keep up their war effort for much longer. As she passed the spot on the porch where Mr. Garvin had always sat, she heard his words in the wind: Miss Lizzie’s game is freedom, girl. She supposed he was right: Miss Lizzie had arranged for Mary Jane to be educated up North, and when she had come back down South, her head full of free thoughts, Miss Lizzie had sent her to Liberia in hopes she’d find peace there. What Miss Lizzie didn’t realize was that Mary Jane had always wanted more than what even her liberal mistress could provide.
The next day Mary Jane hung a red petticoat on the line and, toting one of Mrs. Davis’s dresses, made her way to Mrs. Thompson’s.
Miss Lizzie’s appearance was even more haggard than usual: her hair was unwashed and her clothing stained. Mary Jane couldn’t decide if it was another calculated move or if she really had become that negligent with her grooming.
“Where have you been?” she asked Mary Jane, embracing her with her skinny arms.
“I was there, at the riot.”
Mrs. Thompson’s hand went to her mouth as Miss Lizzie demanded if Mary Jane was all right. She looked as though she would hug her again, but Mary Jane waved her off. “I’m fine. I want you to make sure you spread the word up North via your contacts in the Underground.”
She nodded. “Of course.” Her normally pinched face grew even more strained. “Is anything else the matter?”
“No.” Mary Jane fought to keep her voice light, but her insides were in turmoil. She wanted to confess what Mr. Garvin had told her, but she couldn’t. Besides, would it change anything about their relationship? Mary Jane resolved right then that she would never have that discussion. It was possible Miss Lizzie had done what she had for Mary Jane out of a familial love, but could have just as well been because Miss Lizzie always chose to do the opposite of what proper Southern society said she should.
“How are you getting along?” she asked her former mistress, carefully keeping her eyes away from Miss Lizzie’s disheveled outfit.
“Fine, fine. The impressment agents have stolen two of our fine white horses, but as I’m keeping the last one in the house with us, they won’t be able to seize him.”
Mary Jane had to smile despite herself. “Of course you would have a horse living in the house. Is he installed in the attic room?”
Miss Lizzie’s face lit up. “No, there are too many Union men hiding in there now. I put the horse in the study. My nieces keep him fed with apples, and he knows enough not to make noise when the neighbors are about. With Winder’s ‘plug-ugly’ detectives always roaming about, it’s not safe for man or beast.” The light in her face faded as quickly as it had appeared. “I heard that the Davises are in need of help again. The talk of the town is that all of their slaves are deserting. Perhaps we should make arrangements for you to leave as well.”
“No.” Mary Jane recalled what Mr. Garvin had said about them needing her more than ever. “Not yet. They are having yet another meeting in the dining room tonight.”
Miss Lizzie nodded, a bit satisfactorily, Mary Jane thought. She dug something out of her carpetbag and pressed it into Mary Jane’s hands. “This is for you.”
It was a tiny parcel of sugar. “However did you get such a luxury?” Mary Jane asked.
“Mr. Garvin sent it by way of my brother, John.”
Mary Jane tucked it into her skirt pockets. “Make sure to thank him from me.”
“Of course. Please be careful, Mary Jane.”
“I will.”
Mary Jane returned to find the Davises’ house filled with people. The Confederates had somehow triumphed at the Battle of Chancellorsville, a fact that Mary Jane found hard to swallow considering the talk the days prior had been how badly Lee’s army was outnumbered.
“That Bob Lee will be our salvation!” Mr. Davis called from the dining room. “Little Mary, can you fetch my best bottle of whiskey from the cellar?”
When she returned with the bottle and as much glassware as she could muster, Jeff Davis insisted on toasting to both Lee and Stonewall Jackson. “God bless him and his wounds,” he added before taking a tiny sip of liquor.
“I was not aware General Jackson was hurt,” Judah Benjamin stated as he handed Mary Jane his glass to refill.
“Friendly fire, I heard,” someone replied. “One of our boys mistakenly hit him.”
“Three times!” another man called. “Luckily only in the arm, though they would’ve done no worse had they hit him through that stonewalled stomach of his.”
The celebrations continued long into the night, the Confederates believing that their army had become invincible, General Jackson’s minor wounds notwithstanding.
It was the last time Mary Jane recalled the President smiling, for the news a few days later was that General Jackson had developed pneumonia after the amputation of his shattered arm and was in dire straits. Mr. Davis paced the hallways continuously upon hearing the news, and the next morning Mrs. O’Melia confided he had been up all night. Mr. Garvin’s replacement was ordered to wait at the train depot while a secretary was stationed at the telegraph office. Mr. Davis wanted to be the first to hear the news, good or bad, on General Jackson’s fate.
When the report came that the great General Jackson had died, Mary Jane thought Mr. Davis likely to keel over as well. He immediately volunteered his house as host for the General’s body, but word came that the governor, a long-time rival of the Davises, would be hosting the funeral. It was another low blow for the already downtrodden president.
Chapter 56
Belle
May 1863
Belle had spent the winter and spring passing from family to family in Tennessee and Alabama. She had just returned to her cousin’s home in Mobile when she received a heart-wrenching telegram:
Miss Belle Boyd:
General Jackson now lies in state at the Governor’s House.
It was signed by T. Bassett French, the aide-de-camp to the Governor of Alabama.
She’d previously heard that Stonewall Jackson had been shot in the arm by his own men, but also that the wound had been trifling and the general was expected to make a full recovery. She immediately shot off a telegram to Virginia governor John Letcher to verify the awful rumor:
Please telegraph if Gen. Jackson is dead. If so, save me a lock of his hair.
Yours truly, Belle Boyd
She could hardly believe the rumor: the general was surely bulletproof, his stamina impregnable. A man such as he would never have been brought down by enemy fire. But sadly, Letcher soon confirmed that General Jackson was indeed dead.
In true military style, Belle showed her mourning by wrapping a black crepe band over her left arm for the next thirty days. She refused to speak of his death to anyone, telling people that her sorrow was inextinguishable, like the sorrow of all the South. Stonewall had been the one to advise her to go on her Southern tour and now all she wanted was home.
But Martinsburg now was part of the new state of West Virginia, the thirty-fifth in the Union. The new state’s constitution freed all people born into slavery after July 4, 1863. All others would be freed on their twenty-fifth birthdays.
Belle had strongly opposed the decision and publicly called West Virginia the “bastard state of a political rape.” As part of her release from Old Capitol Prison, Belle had been forbidden to cross into Union territory; a return to Martinsburg would violate the conditions of her parole. News that her father was again on sick leave and that her mother, at thirty-seven, was nine months pregnant, only made Belle all the more determined to go home.
Chapter 57
Mary Jane
May 1863
Mary Jane answered the door a few weeks after General Jackson’s death to find an elegant looking man with a neatly trimmed beard and a polished uniform standing on the portico.
“General Lee?” she guessed, moving aside for him to enter.
He glanced down at his boots and offered Mary Jane a shy smile. He did his best to wipe the muck from the Richmond streets on the hallway rug, but it didn’t stop him from leaving muddy footprints on the cream-colored carpet leading to the snuggery.
“Ah, Bob,” Mr. Davis rose when they entered. “Coffee, please, Little Mary.” He sat back down, motioning for Lee to do the same as Mary Jane left the room.
General Lee discussed his strategy as Mary Jane returned to serve the two men. “I’ve had to reorganize our army now that we’ve lost Stonewall.” His voice broke and he looked up. “Jeff, I never believed until he took his last breath that he would be gone. It’s made a staggering impact on our boys’ morale.”
“It’s made a staggering impact on all of our morale. But we will get past it.”
General Lee nodded. “Thank you,” he said to Mary Jane as he picked up his cup.
She returned his nod, thinking that might have been the first time a Confederate had expressed any gratitude for her service.
Lee took a sip as Mary Jane went to her customary place in the corner. “I know that the news from Vicksburg is no good.”
“We stand to lose most of the West if Grant doesn’t end his siege.”
General Lee nodded. “That seems inevitable now.” He put his saucer on the table. “What we need to do is try to disable their own capital. We need to make another Northern invasion.”
“After Antietam last year—”
General Lee held up
his hand. “I know. I plan on moving the Army of Virginia through Pennsylvania.” He gave a small smile. “The army can grow fat off of the Union’s crops and then we can attack.”
Mr. Davis demurred, saying he would call a cabinet meeting to discuss Lee’s proposal.
The next day, Mary Jane informed Mr. McNiven of the Confederate’s plans to invade the North. He, in turn, handed her a letter.
“Who is it from?” There was no return address on it.
“Your husband.” Mr. McNiven tipped his hat toward her. “I will deliver your information straightaway. We can’t let the Rebels attack us in our own territory.”
That night Mary Jane opened the letter to find that Wilson had left for Ohio to enlist with the Union army’s brand-new colored unit. She traced her fingers over the words Even with all that Miss Lizzie has given to me, I still have the urge to help my country in a greater way. I know you of all people would understand.
Mary Jane refolded the letter, intending on burning it in the parlor fireplace the next morning. She wiped away a single tear, shed for the things that might have been if circumstances had been different, before blowing out her candle.
A few days later came the news that General Ulysses S. Grant and his Army of the Tennessee had reached the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Mary Jane hoped that the likelihood of losing the last stronghold on the Mississippi River would be the impetus for the South to surrender, but they doggedly continued on. His poor health continuing to besiege him, Jefferson Davis met almost nightly with his cabinet in the executive dining room. The discussion centered on how to increase the number of soldiers in the army.
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