by John Jakes
Ah, but there were many such balancing acts in Washington. It was, as experience had taught him, a city of carnival performers wearing the costumes of patriots.
In Lehigh Station, the cemetery workers dug new graves, arriving freight trains discharged new coffins, arriving cars delivered one or two of the newly injured or permanently maimed. About town there could also be seen the occasional able-bodied male who shouldn’t be at home just now. Brett had been a resident long enough to recognize such men.
She chose not to attend the local July fourth celebration—there was little patriotic fervor these days—and instead spent nine hours with Scipio Brown’s children, teaching ciphering. It was a time of stifling weather, sinking morale, sudden alarms. Jubal Early’s army had encircled Washington and cut rail and telegraph lines to Baltimore. Jubal Early’s army had reached Silver Spring, within sight of Union fortifications along Rock Creek. Jubal Early’s army had almost pocketed Washington before being driven away toward Pennsylvania. And how far into the state might the rebs come this time?
It was a season of steadily mounting mistrust and hatred of Lincoln. Did he dare do what he said he might—call for another half-million volunteers to feed Grant’s red machine before the month was out? It was a season of war-weariness and cynicism. Lute Fessenden’s cousin had built up a handsome trade as a substitute broker. Conscription substitutes simply couldn’t be found unless one dealt with him; he had cornered all those available in the valley by promising them higher rewards than anyone else. He charged eight hundred to one thousand dollars per substitute, depending on the applicant. The potential draftees raged. But they paid.
All this was a real but somehow immaterial backdrop to the central fact of Brett’s life. With the help of Charles Main, Billy had escaped from Libby Prison, dashed through enemy country, and reached the Union lines during the titanic battle at Spotsylvania. A bullet had given him a light leg wound, but his letters said he was completely recovered and back on duty at Petersburg.
The joyous turnabout filled her days with cheer. To a lesser extent, so did the visits of Scipio Brown, who arrived with a new youngster every second or third week. The facility was by now hopelessly overcrowded. But Brown kept bringing more amber or blue-coal or café-au-lait children, and she fell in love with every single one.
Brown himself displayed a growing impatience to join a military unit before the South surrendered. “A commission in a Negro cavalry regiment. It’s all I want. I must get it. I’m trying.”
“I hope you do get it, Scipio. You’re a splendid horseman. How can they not take you?”
Brett had been away from South Carolina three years. It no longer gave her pause to consider that when Brown joined the army, he would have the same status as any white man. She found the fact unremarkable—perfectly natural—because she now saw Brown solely as a man with a singular combination of traits, most of them likable. She knew he was a Negro, but color no longer played a part in how she felt about him.
Constance was a frequently amused and surprised observer of all this. “I declare, Brett, you’re ever so much happier the day before Scipio arrives than you are the day he leaves.”
“Am I?” A smile, a lifted shoulder. “I suppose. I like him.”
Constance nodded; both women understood it was the only explanation required. But in letters to George, Constance wrote of a marked sea change in the making.
Then came a stunning surprise. A plea by telegraph from Madeline Main. She was in Washington.
“Orry didn’t want her trying to reach South Carolina,” Constance said after reading the message again to be sure of the contents. “With the help of a black man from Fredericksburg, she reached Fort Du Pont, one of the fortifications along the East Branch, and crossed the lines. She was detained a day for questioning, then released. She wants permission to come here.”
At once, Brett said, “I think someone should go to Washington to help her make the journey. I’m willing.”
“I won’t have you do it alone. We’ll both go.”
So, while the siege seemed to stall at Petersburg and Sherman seemed to stall before Atlanta, the two women made the long, dirty train trip to the capital, gazing anxiously out the window of the rattling car now and then. Half the passengers did the same thing. There were still wild tales of old Jube Early’s men running amok on the lower border.
But they saw no sign of rebs between Lehigh Station and Washington. In a small, dark room on the island, Madeline greeted them from the middle of a pile of ripped clothing she was sorting. With her dark hair bunned and her hot bombazine dress rustling, she looked quite matronly. But still a beauty, Brett saw before they hugged.
“How good to see you,” Constance said after she and Madeline embraced. “I’m glad Orry sent you this way instead of down South where there’s so much danger.”
“We’ll take good care of you,” Brett promised. “You do look worn out.”
“I’m much better now that you two are here.”
“Was it an ordeal?” Brett asked.
“Yes, but I’ll spare you the details. There you see a few.” She pointed to the torn dresses and undergarments. “It took a destructive search to convince one Union officer that I wasn’t a smuggler or a spy. I’ll have everything repacked in ten minutes. I can’t wait to leave. We have big palmetto bugs in South Carolina, but the ones infesting this place make ours look like dwarfs.”
Constance laughed, genuinely glad Orry had entrusted his wife to the care of Northerners. It meant that the ties of friendship between the families, though stretched and tenuous, were still intact. Sometimes, she knew, George feared the war would sunder those ties.
All at once Constance noticed a change in Madeline’s expression. She was pensive, even pained. She sat down on the bed, hands in her lap, and looked from Brett to Constance. “Before we go, I want to explain why I had to leave Richmond. Other people learned what Orry’s known since I ran away from Resolute. I—”
Silence for a moment. She seemed to struggle with some burden, then fling it off, sitting straighter. “I have Negro blood. My mother was a New Orleans quadroon.”
Brett’s admiration gave way to a rush of dizziness. She held still, not daring to move for fear she would shame Madeline, who continued to speak as calmly as if she were reciting a primer lesson. You know what that means in the Confederacy. One drop of black blood and you’re a black person.” She paused. “Will that be true in Lehigh Station?”
Constance answered first. “Absolutely not. No one will know. You needn’t have told us.”
“Oh, no, I felt obligated.”
Light-headed, Brett wasn’t sure how she felt. Scipio Brown was forgotten as she struggled with the idea that this woman who shared her brother’s bed and love—and the family name—was a Negro. Of course she didn’t look it, but the truth was exactly as Madeline had stated it. Looks didn’t measure blackness; only ancestry. Confusing emotions, childhood-deep, engulfed her.
“Are you positive it makes no difference?” Madeline asked.
“None,” Brett said, wishing it were so.
“If I’d stayed on the river road, they’d have caught me sure,” Andy said. “They popped out of the palmettos—two of ’em on mules—but I know some of the back paths and they didn’t. That’s how I got away.”
“Well, sit down, rest yourself,” Philemon Meek said, giving up his own chair. “I’m thankful you’re all right.”
The heavy air of a July twilight filled the plantation office. Meek paced, swinging his spectacles from his bent index finger. How old he’s grown, Cooper thought from the shadowed corner where he stood, arms folded.
After Andy came dashing up the lane, sweat and fright on his face, Meek insisted the three of them confer here rather than in the great house. In the office, the overseer explained, they wouldn’t be overheard, thus would not alarm Cooper’s wife and daughter or the house servants. It was the house people Meek worried about most. He didn’t want them to run off.
Cooper went along with Meek, but he had fewer illusions than the overseer. The house people knew the guerrilla band was encamped nearby, its ranks growing weekly. The only person unaware of the danger was Clarissa.
“If I’d known an ordinary errand would be so dangerous, I wouldn’t have sent you, Andy,” Meek said. “I’m sorry. Hope you believe that.”
“Yes, sir. I do.” Cooper marveled. The apology and the response demonstrated the immense change the war had wrought on the plantation.
Meek stopped swinging his spectacles. “Now I want to be clear about this. You saw white men this time.”
“That’s right. Two in regular army gray, three in butternut. Those butternut coats didn’t look like much. Still, you could tell they belonged to soldiers—either the ones wearing them or the ones they stole ’em from.”
The overseer pronounced the verdict they all knew: “If white deserters are joining the nigras, then we’ve twice the reason to fear.” He swung toward the possessor of final authority. “I have little doubt they’ll attack us, Mr. Main. This is the largest plantation still operating in the district. I think we should arm some of the slaves—assuming we can find anything to arm them with. The attack may not come for a while, but we’ve got to be ready when it does.”
“Is that the only way?” Cooper snapped. “Fighting?”
The overseer was momentarily stunned to silence. Andy didn’t know what to make of the questioning response. After a few seconds, Meek said, “If you can suggest another, I’ll be glad to hear it.”
Stillness, filled with insect sounds. Up toward the house, a woman chanted the melody of a hymn. From a great distance they heard the raucous cry of a salt crow, answered by another. Andy peered out the window anxiously.
Cooper recognized defeat, sighed. “All right. I’ll go to Charleston to see whether I can find some secondhand guns.” Brusquely and with urgency, Meek said, “Soon, please?”
In Richmond next day, Orry packed the last of the few personal things with which he and Madeline had furnished the rooms on Marshall Street. The items went into a crate he nailed shut with a hammer wielded easily in his powerful right hand. Pounding the precious rusty nails one by one, he wondered if he would ever see the box after he consigned it to a local warehouse. He felt despondent about his negative answer, but comforted when he recalled that it was not an isolated reaction. Throughout the South, expectations sank daily.
He squeezed uniforms and gear into a small dilapidated trunk for which he had paid a barbarous price. He tagged the trunk with appropriate information and set it on the landing. Late in the afternoon, a white-haired Negro teamster appeared. The man’s shoulders were round as the top of a question mark. Orry offered him a tip, but the man shook his head, gave him a sadly resentful look, and took the trunk away, making certain Orry heard his groans as he descended the stairs.
At dusk he donned his best gray uniform, locked the flat, and handed the key to the landlady. Carrying a small carpetbag containing items he didn’t want to risk losing—his razor, a bar of soap, and two thin books of poetry—he walked to the marshaling yard where his transportation was waiting—a supply wagon bound south, seven and a half miles, to Chaffin’s Bluff. There, Pickett’s Division anchored the right end of the Intermediate Line, one of the five defense lines ringing the city.
The teamster invited Orry to sit next to him, but Orry preferred to ride in back, along with several unmarked boxes, his trunk and carpetbag, and his thoughts. He was happy to leave Richmond, but the prospect of joining Pickett’s staff had not really lifted his spirits the way he had hoped. He was still shamed by Ashton’s treachery and shocked by his callous disposal of Elkanah Bent. His loneliness since Madeline’s departure could better be termed despondency. He prayed that she had reached Washington and would continue to think he was working in relative safety at the War Department.
Orry had always tried to draw lessons from experience. He had attempted it again after the entire government appeared to turn on his wife solely because she had a Negro ancestor. He found the lesson was familiar. Cooper had preached it for many years, and Orry had just as consistently ignored it until both sides had gone too far down the steep, dark road to war.
To this very day, the South was a stubborn pupil, rejecting the lesson even after the teacher’s stick beat the pupil until he bled from mortal wounds. What would bring the Confederacy to an inglorious end was the same thing that had so foolishly created it a rigidity of thought, a clinging to old ways, a refusal to adapt and change.
That was it, Orry saw with a little frisson of revelation. The fatal flaw. Minds of stone—pugnaciously proud of the condition.
Examples abounded. The South needed soldiers in the most desperate way, yet those who urged the enlistment of blacks were still called lunatics.
Were not the rights of states supreme? Of course they were Thus the governor of Georgia needed no other grounds to exempt three thousand militia officers from army service and five thousand government workers besides. Using the same justification the governor of North Carolina stockpiled thousands of uniforms, blankets, and rifles under the banner of state defense. Such right-thinking, principled men were more destructive than Sam Grant.
Orry wasn’t a strong strategic thinker, but in sorting through probable causes of the inevitable defeat, he thought he had found another important one in newspaper dispatches describing the opposing presidents. At the start of the war, both Davis and Lincoln had personally directed military policy. Lincoln had even told McClellan the precise day on which he had to march to the peninsula.
Bloody losses had somehow taught Lincoln to revise his opinion of himself as a strategist and infallible judge of the capabilities of generals. On Capitol Square, it was widely held that at some point earlier this year, Lincoln had acknowledged his limitations by transferring control of the war engine to a man who ran it his own way: Grant.
Davis, by contrast, had never learned to recognize personal shortcomings, admit mistakes, adapt to new circumstances, change. The wheel revolved to Cooper again. When had Orry first heard him argue scornfully with their father that the South’s greatest peril was its inflexibility? Longer ago than he could precisely remember.
Still, Orry reflected as the swaying wagon bore him toward Chaffin’s Bluff, he mustn’t be too hard on his own kind. Minds of stone were numerous not only inside Dixie but outside, too. There were plenty in the Yankee Congress; even one or two in the Hazard family, the foremost being Virgilia’s.
But it was becoming clear to Orry that after the war ended, a new, entirely different world would arise. In that world there would be but one way for the South to survive and rebuild. That way was to accept what had happened. Accept that no black man would ever again labor unwillingly for a white man’s profit. In sum—accept change.
He doubted whether most Southerners could do it. Many would undoubtedly go on hating, resisting, insisting they had been morally right, which Orry no longer believed. But again, he supposed just as many Yankees were willingly entrapped in the old modes of enmity and a yearning for reprisals. It was not, perhaps, merely the Southerner who failed to learn lessons, but every man in every epoch.
Trouble was, when you refused to learn, the result was what surrounded the rumbling wagon: soured earth; abandoned homes; imperiled lives.
Ruin.
Ruin and sadness like that on George Pickett’s face when the general accepted Orry’s salute and welcomed him to division headquarters.
“How good to see you at last.”
“It’s good to be here, sir.”
A melancholy smile. “I hope you’ll say that after you’ve spent a few weeks in close proximity to our old acquaintance from West Point. We have met a man this time who either doesn’t know when he’s whipped or doesn’t care if he loses his whole army to whip us. There is no way effectively to oppose that kind of man for very long.”
There is one, Orry thought. But he wasn’t foolish enough to bring up the is
sue of black recruits and spoil the reunion and his first moments in the war zone.
113
THREE WOMEN DINING.
Constance called for candles instead of gaslight, believing it might warm the atmosphere for supper. It did, but that hardly mattered after her first effort to make conversation.
“Well, here we are—” she raised her claret to toast the guests seated on her right and left at the long table “—three war widows.”
“I wish you wouldn’t say such a thing,” Brett exclaimed.
“Oh, my dear, I’m sorry. It was a clumsy attempt to make a light remark. I apologize.”
“It’s too serious to joke about,” Brett said as Bridgit and a second kitchen girl marched in with china tureens of steaming mock turtle soup.
“I understand what you meant,” Madeline said to Constance, “but I agree with Brett.” She wore a clean, dark dress, and her hair was neatly arranged, but she hadn’t lost the haggard air acquired on her long journey. She plied her spoon and tried to comfort Constance with a smile. “This is absolutely delicious.”
Straining equally: “Thank you.”
Presently, Constance steered the conversation to a safer track. She laughed and spoke ruefully about her continuing weight problem, hoping that jokes at her own expense would enable them to forgive and forget her misplaced flippancy. She saw little sign of success.
She answered Madeline’s questions about her father, Patrick Flynn. He was in the pueblo of Los Angeles and busy improving his Spanish so he could serve native-born clients in addition to the settler community.
“And Virgilia?”
“We never hear from her. I presume she’s still with the nurse corps.”
“I would think she’d be a little more grateful for the shelter and guidance you gave her,” Brett said. “Simple politeness would dictate an occasional letter, if nothing else.”
Constance reached for the glinting knife on the cutting board. Smiling, she began to slice the hot, fresh loaf. “Alas, I don’t think we can count gratitude among my sister-in-law’s virtues.”