by John Jakes
Constance charmed the retired superintendent, too. The trio approached McClellan, temporarily without a crowd around him. “An old classmate of yours—” Thayer began.
“Stump Hazard! I saw you across the room a while ago—knew you instantly.” McClellan’s greeting was hearty, yet George thought he detected artificiality. On second thought, perhaps it existed mostly in his imagination. McClellan was now a national figure; George knew that changed the way people perceived and treated him. His own self-conscious reply demonstrated it.
“Good evening, General.”
“No, no—Mac, always. Tell me, what’s become of that fellow you were so tight with? Southerner, wasn’t he?”
“Yes. Orry Main. I don’t know what’s become of him. I last saw him in April.”
McClellan’s wife, Nell, joined them, and the four fell to talking about Washington and the war. McClellan grew grave. “The Union is in peril, and the President seems powerless to save it. The savior’s role has fallen to me. I shall perform it to the best of my ability.”
Not even a hint of lightness leavened the statement. George felt his wife’s hand tighten on his sleeve; was her reaction the same as his? In a moment the McClellans excused themselves to join General and Mrs. Meade. Constance waited till they were out of earshot.
“I have never heard anything so astonishing. There’s something wrong with à man who calls himself a savior.”
“Well, Mac isn’t your average fellow and never was. We shouldn’t be too quick to judge. God knows the task they handed him is formidable.”
“I still say there’s something wrong with him.”
George silently admitted McClellan had left the same impression with him.
He could no longer fool himself into thinking he was having a good time. As the currents of the party flowed and mingled, he and Constance found themselves in a circle with Thad Stevens, the Pennsylvania lawyer who would be the most powerful House member of Wade’s oversight committee. Stevens struck most everyone as peculiar, with his clubfoot and his head of thick hair cocked fifteen degrees off the vertical. A certain sinister air was only enhanced by his cold passion.
“I do not agree with the President on all subjects, but I agree on one. As he says, the Union is not some free-love arrangement which any state can dissolve at will. The rebels are not erring sisters, as Mr. Greeley so tenderly termed them, but enemies, vicious enemies, of the temple of freedom that is our country. There can be only one fate for vicious enemies. Punishment. We should free every slave, we should slaughter every traitor, we should burn every rebel mansion to the ground. If those in the executive lack the grit for the job, our committee does not.” The eye of the zealot swept the awed group. “I give you my solemn promise, ladies and gentlemen—the committee does not.” He limped away.
“Constance,” George said, “let’s go home.”
Madeline and Hettie, a house girl, were wiping out a mildewed trunk when feet pounded on the attic stair. “Miss Madeline? You better come quick.”
She dropped the damp rag and went instantly. “What is it, Aristotle?”
“Miss Clarissa. She went for her walk after breakfast, and they found her in the garden.”
Dread pierced her, sharp as the air of the winter morning. The sun had not risen high enough to burn the white rime from the lawn. They ran down to the garden, where Clarissa lay on her back between two azalea bushes. Clarissa stared at Madeline and the slave with glittering eyes.
Her left hand reached toward them, imploring. Her right lay unnaturally limp. Tears in her eyes, she tried to form words and produced nothing but thick glottal sounds.
“It’s a seizure,” Madeline said to the anxious black man. She wanted to cry; she wouldn’t get away before New Year’s after all. She couldn’t go until Clarissa recovered. “We must make a litter and move her inside.” Aristotle dashed for the house. When the litter was ready, lifting Clarissa revealed melted rime in the shape of her body—a shadow on a snowfield.
The doctor emerged from Clarissa’s bedroom at half past eleven. Outwardly calm, Madeline received the news that paralysis of the right side was nearly total, and recovery might take most of next year.
47
CHRISTMAS EVE FELL ON a Tuesday. George couldn’t shake the bad mood that had been with him since the McClellan reception. The war, the city, even the season depressed him for reasons he couldn’t completely explain.
A fragrant fire brightened the hearth of the parlor after supper. Patricia had resumed her music lessons with a local teacher, but a regular piano wasn’t practical in the crowded suite, so George had bought a small harmonium. Patricia opened a carol book, pumped the pedals, and played “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.”
Constance came out of the bedroom with three large presents. She placed the packages near similar ones at the base of the fir tree decorated with cranberry strands, gilt-painted wood ornaments, and tiny candles. Buckets of water and sand waited behind the tree. All the gas had been shut off in the room; the light was mellow and pleasant—quite unlike George’s state of mind.
“Sing with me, Papa,” his daughter said between phrases. He shook his head, remaining in his chair. Constance went to the harmonium and added her voice to Patricia’s. The young girl resembled her mother in her prettiness and her bright hair.
Singing, Constance glanced occasionally at her husband. His despondency worried her. “Won’t you, George?” she asked finally, motioning.
“No.”
William wandered in and sang “Joy to the World” with them. Puberty put a crack in his voice; Patricia giggled so hard Constance had to speak to her. After the carol William said, “Pa, can’t each of us open one present tonight?”
“No. You’ve nagged me about that all evening, and I’m sick of it.”
“George, I beg your pardon,” Constance said. “He hasn’t nagged. He’s mentioned it only once.”
“Once or a hundred times, the answer’s no.” He addressed his son. “We shall attend our church in the morning, and your mother will go to mass, then we’ll have our gifts.”
“After church?” William cried. “Waiting that long isn’t fair. Why not after breakfast?”
“It’s your father’s decision,” Constance said-softly. George paid no attention to her slight frown.
William wouldn’t be persuaded. “It isn’t fair!”
“I’ll show you what’s fair, you impertinent—”
“George!” He was halfway to his son before Constance stepped between them. “Try to remember it’s Christmas Eve. We are your family, but you act as if we’re enemies. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing—I don’t know—Where are my cigars?” He leaned on the mantelpiece, his back to the others. His eye fell on the sprig of laurel he had brought from Lehigh Station and kept on the mantel. The sprig was withered and brown. He snatched it and flung it in the fire.
“I’m going to bed.”
The laurel smoked, curled, and vanished.
He slammed the bedroom door and splashed cold water on his face, then searched till he found a cigar. After raising the window, he crawled into bed with a stack of contracts he had brought home. The fine loops and flourishes of the copyists blurred before his eyes, meaningless. He felt guilty about his behavior, angry with everyone and everything. He dropped the contracts on the floor, stubbed out the cigar, extinguished the gas, and rolled up under the comforter.
He never knew when Constance came to bed. He was lost and far away, watching exquisitely slow shellbursts on the road to Churubusco, watching a great malevolent India-rubber head—Thad Stevens—loom steadily larger, the shouting mouth huge as a cave. Free every slave. Slaughter every traitor. Burn every mansion. In the ravening maw he saw Mont Royal afire.
He watched the road from Cub Run. The fallen horse. The young Zouave, crashing his musket down on the only target he could find for his fear and fury. The horse peeled its lips back from its teeth, demented by pain. The Zouave struck once more. The head o
pened like some exotic fruit, spilling its red pulp in pumping spurts that became a flow. Which was the animal? Which was the man? The guns changed everything.
The Zouave, the horse, the scene exploded as if struck by a shell. Deep in dreams, the dreamer retreated, whimpering with relief—only to see the Zouave approach the horse again, raise the musket again, bring the butt down again, the cycle restarting—
“Stop it.”
“George—”
“Stop it, stop it.” He flailed at soft things wrapped around his body. He kept screaming “Stop it.”
A young voice called out fearfully: “Pa? Mama, is he all right?”
“Yes, William.”
“Stop—” A great, long gasp from George, and realization. Faintly: “—it.”
“Go back to bed, William,” Constance called. “It’s just a nightmare.”
“Jesus Christ,” George whispered in the dark, shuddering.
“There.” Her arms were what he had attempted to fight off. “There.” She brushed hair from his wet forehead, kissing him. How warm she felt. He slid his hands around her and held her, ashamed of his weakness but thankful for the comfort. “What were you dreaming? It must have been horrible.”
“Mexico, Bull Run—it was. I’m sorry I was so rotten tonight. I’ll speak to the children first thing in the morning. We’ll open gifts. I want them to know I’m sorry.”
“They understand. They know you’re hurting badly. They just don’t know why. I’m not sure I do either.”
“God, they must hate me.”
“Never. They know you’re a good father. They love you and want you to be happy, especially at Christmas.”
“The war makes Christmas a mockery.” He pressed his face to hers; both cheeks were cold. The room was freezing; he had opened the window too far. The air smelled of old cigars and of his sweat.
“Is it the war that’s troubling you so badly?”
“I guess. What a little word, war, to bring so much misery. I can’t stand the dishonesty in this town. The greed behind the flag-waving rhetoric. Do you know something? At the rate Stanley is selling bootees to the infantry, he’ll have an enormous profit within a year. Practically a small fortune. And do you know that the shoes he’s delivering will fall apart after a week of use on hard roads in Virginia or Missouri or wherever the damned disgraceful things are sent?”
“I’d rather not know things like that.”
“What bothers me most is something Thayer said at the dinner. You don’t build an effective army in ninety days. It takes two or three years.”
“You mean he thinks the war may last that long?”
“Yes. The springtime war—short, sanitary—that was a cruel delusion. War’s not like that. Never has been, never will be. Now everything’s changing. Other men are taking charge, men like Stevens, who want slaughter. Can Billy survive that? What about Orry and Charles? If I ever see Orry again, will he speak to me? Long wars make for long hatreds. A long war will change people, Constance. Wear them out. Destroy them with despair, if it doesn’t kill them outright. I finally faced that—and look what it’s done to me.”
She hugged him to her breast. Her silence said she understood his fears and shared them and had no answers for his questions. Presently he went to shut the window. Outside, it was snowing again.
48
CHARLES HAD FIRED HIS shotgun in anger just three times during the autumn. Each time he had led a scout detachment well past the rifle pits Hampton’s infantry had dug as part of the Confederate defense line; each time the targets were fleeing Yanks on horseback. He had wounded one but missed the rest.
That typified the months since Manassas: uneventful except for the spirit-lifting victory at Ball’s Bluff in late October. In the North the engagement had produced accusations of bungling, even treason, directed against the Union commander who had led the Potomac crossing, then seen his men shot or drowned as Confederate fire repelled them. Shanks Evans, a South Carolinian who had ridden against Charles in horse races in Texas, had distinguished himself at Ball’s Bluff, just as he had at Manassas. Promotion looked doubtful for him, though; he drank too much and had a violent temper.
The colonel’s elevation to brigadier, on the other hand, looked certain. He was in favor with Johnston, who had been given the whole Department of Virginia in the reorganization after Ball’s Bluff. Old Bory had lost out and was now relegated to command of the Potomac district, one of several in the department. As a practical matter, Hampton had been carrying the responsibilities of a brigadier since November, with three more regiments of foot, two from Georgia, one from North Carolina, placed under him. Calbraith Butler was commanding the cavalry, which did everything from probing Yankee positions to guarding paymaster wagon trains.
During the fall, Charles had found just one period of two days when he was free to visit Spotsylvania County. After a fast, exhausting ride, he had located Barclay’s Farm easily, only to find the owner absent. The older of her two freedmen, Washington, said she had gone to Richmond with the younger one, Boz, to sell the last of her corn crop and a few pumpkins, eggs, and cheeses. Charles rode back to the lines in a bitter mood, made no better by hours of drenching rain.
The legion had hutted for the winter near Dumfries. Tonight, Christmas Eve, Charles was alone in the log-and-daub cottage he and Ambrose had put together with axes, sweat, and no Negro labor. Except for a few holdouts such as Custom Cramm III, most of the troopers had sent their slaves home rather than see them run away.
Tattoo had been sounded half an hour ago, and the final call for quiet would be skipped because of tomorrow’s holiday. Ambrose had drawn patrol duty, riding out before dark in the direction of Fairfax Courthouse to conduct a routine surveillance of the Union lines. His detachment included Private Nelson Gervais, for whom Charles’s epistolary skills had won a promise of the hand of Miss Sally Mills; the couple planned a wedding when Gervais got his first leave.
A small fire burned in the hut fireplace, constructed of bricks foraged in the finest cavalry tradition by First Sergeant Reynolds. The bricks ran to a height level with the top of the door; above, the chimney was mud and sticks. On the mantel, a plank resting on pegs, sat a cased ambrotype of Ambrose’s parents and a photograph of Ambrose and Charles with ferns, columns, and the Confederate national flag in the background; such properties were a standard part of the kit of photographers who worked the camps.
The hut measured twelve feet on each side and included a pair of built-in bunks at opposite ends of the room, a rack for sabers and shotguns, and comfortable handmade furniture: a table of thick boards nailed to a keg; two chairs with curved backs created from flour barrels. Ambrose was a fine woodworker, though he complained that it was slave’s work. He had carved the sign hanging outside above the door and insisted that doing so gave him the right to name the hut. But Charles had vetoed Millwood Mansion as too obvious an attempt to flatter Hampton. Ambrose settled on Gentlemen’s Rest. Charles would have preferred something less sententious; he rather liked the name of the eight-man hut where Gervais lived, Phunny Phellows.
Though the fire made the hut cozy, Charles’s mood was not the best. The evening had started badly when the salt horse served at supper proved inedible. Despite pickling, it was purplish and slimy. They had made do with teeth-dullers and whippoorwill peas.
Turkey, sweet potatoes, and fresh corn bread were promised for Christmas. He would believe a feast when he saw it. Charles’s men hated the Commissary Department. They cursed its head man, Northrop, as floridly as they cursed Old Abe—sometimes more. The beef was getting so tough, Colonel Hampton had remarked last week, he was thinking of requisitioning some files for sharpening teeth.
Parcels from home helped to offset the recent and noticeable decline in the quality of rations. Charles had one such package, or the remains of it, on the table in front of him. It had arrived from Richmond this afternoon, preceded by a letter from Orry, who reported that he was now a lieutenant colonel in the Wa
r Department and stuck in a job he disliked.
As a precaution, Orry had written out a list of the contents of the package and sent it with the letter: two oranges—all he could locate; they had arrived squashed but edible. Two copies of the Southern Illustrated News; one featured a lengthy article about the victory at Ball’s Bluff. The list showed four paper-covered novels, but these had been stolen from the badly torn parcel.
The damage probably accounted for the green mold forming on the two dozen baking-powder biscuits. With his knife, Charles scraped off some of the mold and ate a biscuit. They would do. He wiped the knife blade on his sleeve, which, like the rest of his uniform, had acquired a dirty cast no amount of washing would remove.
Orry had also sent three small crocks of jam for the biscuits; all arrived broken, the contents oozing around pieces of the containers. Charles had thrown the whole mess away. Finally, the package included a dark chocolate cake which looked as if a cannonball had dropped on it. That could be salvaged, crumbs and all. Charles knifed out a large wedge and gobbled it.
He pulled out his pocket watch. Half past eight. He had duties tonight, some official, some not; he supposed he might as well start. He scratched his beard, which he was permitting to grow because it kept his face warm. It was already more than an inch long, thus a convenient home for graybacks, but so far he had managed to avoid a serious infestation. Unlike many of his troopers, he washed as often as possible. He hated feeling dirty, and beyond that, if he were ever lucky enough to be alone with Gus Barclay, and if she were receptive to an advance, he damn well didn’t want any crab lice in residence around his privates. That would scotch romance forever.
Her face came into his thoughts often these days. It had a special vividness tonight. He felt lonely and wished he were at Barclay’s Farm, perhaps listening to her read Pope over cups of heated wine.