by P. G. Nagle
Smiling as she chewed, she saluted Jerome with the cracker, then turned and slouched away. She could feel his gaze upon her, watching her.
As he did not hail her again, she concluded she had succeeded in deceiving him, and that this was a sufficient test of her incognito. She slid the crackers with which he had provisioned her into a pocket, then checked the rest of her supply. A small bottle of silver nitrate, a pocket mirror, two sheets of paper and a pencil, were hidden inside her shirt. She also had some money in the waistband of her trousers, and a loaded revolver at the small of her back beneath her clothing, its solid weight a comfort.
She was as ready as she could be. With excitement beating in her veins, she started toward Yorktown.
Leaving the Federal camp was not difficult; no one seemed to care where a lone contraband was headed. Passing through the Confederate picket line would be less simple, and Emma approached it cautiously, leaving the road and keeping under cover of the woods.
She had been walking for some time by now, and decided it must be near midnight. Darkness aided her as she eased her way forward until she saw a Rebel picket ahead and to her right. He was standing at attention, musket in hand, facing the Federal camp. Emma crept cautiously through the woods, passing within ten yards of where he stood and never drawing his notice.
Separated now from her own people, she felt terribly alone and somewhat uncertain what to do. She determined to wait until morning and find her way into the Rebel camp by daylight. Continuing into the woods until she felt she was a safe distance from the pickets, she lay down and tried to rest.
Reaction set her trembling, and the night’s chill only increased her shivering. She wondered if she would ever return to the Federal camp. She might be discovered and hanged like poor Webster, or worse, she might die undiscovered, the victim of some cruel Confederate whim. The guise she wore made her feel terribly vulnerable. Even in her own army’s camp, where folk were tolerant toward runaway slaves, she had not received much friendly treatment.
Jerome had been kind, though compared to what she knew of his generosity and kind-heartedness, his manner had been cold. She had taken on a role far different than Frank Thompson, who was popular, prosperous, and independent. In the cold dark of the Virginia night, she began to doubt her courage.
Dawn brought a sense of calm, if not a complete renewal of confidence. Emma arose from where she lay and looked about her, wondering if she might be able to discern the number of the Rebels’ cannon from there.
A road passed through the woods not far away—the same road she had walked upon from the Federal camp, and left when she came near the Rebels. She made her way to it and walked up to the top of the next hill. Ahead she saw only trees; the woods were too thick and she was still too far from the Rebel lines. If she was to learn anything of value, she must penetrate further into the Rebels’ camp.
Voices reached her, causing her to duck out of sight behind the trees. The lilt rang familiar; she had heard it among the contrabands who had come to the Second’s camp. Daring to look out from her hiding place, she saw a half-dozen negroes coming along the road carrying buckets in either hand. They were talking cheerfully among themselves, laughing now and then. For men suffering under the yoke of bondage, they seemed carefree.
Emma came to the edge of the road and showed herself. The smell of coffee reached her as the negroes came near, and her stomach rumbled.
“M-morning,” she said as the men reached her. “What you got in them buckets?”
“Breakfast for the pickets,” said a tall, lanky man. “You look like you slep’ in the woods.”
“True ’nough,” Emma said, peering toward the buckets. “I did.”
“Have you some,” said a smaller, round-faced man, smiling kindly. He set down his bucket and unwrapped a napkin from a heap of cornbread, then handed Emma a piece.
“Thank you! Much obliged,” she said, cupping the warm bread in her cold hands.
Another of the negroes poured coffee into a tin cup for her, then they all left, heading for the picket line. Emma sat in the road and ate her breakfast, grateful for this small bit of good fortune. She felt much better presently, and when the negroes returned, she joined them, offering to carry some of the buckets.
“Sure, now you gonna carry them,” said the tall man. “Now that they’s empty!”
Emma laughed along with them all and took a bucket from the tall one, who seemed to be the leader. The bucket contained a jumble of empty pitchers and cups. Emma added her cup to it and walked along with the others, her burden clanking gently. In this way she walked straight into the Confederate camp, unchallenged.
By this time she knew the names of her new friends, and had told them her own was “Ned.” At a large open-air kitchen she yielded up her bucket, and the others of her party dispersed to report to their foremen for the day’s work, leaving Emma standing alone and somewhat at a loss.
Yorktown had been a fortress during the revolution, and the Rebels were hastily enhancing its fortification. Emma gazed at the nearest earthwork, which was completed and housed two three-inch rifled cannon in embrasures. She raised her gaze beyond to more distant works, trying to discern the type and number of guns.
“You there!”
Emma jumped and turned. A Rebel officer mounted on a bay horse came toward her, his face reddened from exposure to sun, his expression belligerent.
“Who do you belong to, and why are you not at work?”
The horse tossed its head as its rider urged it right up to Emma. She took a step back from the restless hooves and ducked her head.
“Oh, I...”
A smart slap stung her back across her shoulder blades. Astonished, she managed to keep from looking up in indignation at the man who had laid his whip to her. She ducked her head, seething.
His voice sneered. “Take that black rascal and set him to work, and if he don’t work well tie him up and give him twenty lashes.”
Wheeling his horse, the officer rode away, leaving Emma breathless with fear. A whipping, which it seemed she might be given at a moment’s whim, would reveal her for certain. She might never feel the lash, but her fate would undoubtedly be even worse. She looked at the man the officer had spoken to, who wore civilian clothes and a broad-brimmed hat, and stood smiling mirthlessly.
“Better get to workin’, boy,” he drawled. “Thisaway.”
He led Emma to where a new breastwork was being built, gave her a wheelbarrow and a pickaxe, and set her to work at once. The threat of whipping soon faded in her mind, replaced by a numbness that was the consequence of backbreaking toil, as she joined the crew of slaves taking gravel up the breastwork by means of wheelbarrows.
The barrows were pushed up a single plank laid from the foot of the work to its top. Emma was not the only one who needed assistance to get her barrow up the wobbling plank. By the end of the day her hands were raw with blisters, and she had a more literal appreciation of the bondsman’s hardship.
At last darkness put an end to the work, and Emma shuffled along with the others to get her supper rations, which consisted of more cornbread and a generous dollop of whiskey, which as it did not interest her she gave to another. Neither meat nor coffee was given to the negroes. Emma began to see the advantage of being on the detail that took breakfast to the pickets, and made up her mind to seek out Joe, the tall lanky man who was boss of that crew.
Finally at liberty to walk the camp, Emma did so, taking note of the number and placement of guns, and the extent of the earthworks. No one paid her any heed as she wandered the full length of the works. She found a sheltered place to make notes of what she had seen and draw a rough sketch of the works, which she hid beneath the sole of her shoe.
By now she was weary enough to be near dropping asleep. The prospect of another day laboring on the works sobered her, however. She knew that another such day would leave her hands bleeding, if she suffered no worse fate.
She returned to the negro quarters, which we
re simply an open field on which the slaves lay upon the ground or huddled around campfires. All were men; she had seen a few female slaves in the camp, but apparently they were quartered elsewhere. She took her place at one of the fires and listened to the desultory conversation of the men.
“You all working on the forticashuns?” she asked.
Most of the men around the fire nodded, save for one smaller fellow, about Emma’s size. The man next to him cuffed him.
“Deezer’s on the water detail, ain’t ya?”
“Carry water all day, water to the whole brigade,” Deezer answered. “Not so much different than carryin’ rock.”
“Ho,” said one of the others, and a pithy comparison of the demands of the two duties followed. Emma listened, nodding her head in agreement with her fellow gravel-haulers. When the subject shifted she got up and stretched, and moved away as if to go to bed. She moved only as far as to get out of the firelight, however, and sat down again to wait.
The group around the fire broke into a song. Emma listened, amazed. Even in their plight, these people could make joyful music.
The song ended and another was taken up, accompanied by clapping and exclamations of praise. Perhaps half an hour had passed when a pause occurred. Deezer stood up, announced he needed to piss, and walked off. Emma rose and followed him toward the sinks.
“Say there, Deezer,” she said when they were far enough from the fire not to be overheard, “you think you might trade work with me tomorrow?”
He stopped and looked at her. “Why’d I want to do that?”
“Look how my hands is all blistered.”
Emma showed her hands, and Deezer peered at them in the dim light. “Shoot, looks like you never done a day’s work before!”
“Not this kind of work, no,” Emma said. “Listen, I’ll give you some money if you switch with me. Let me carry water for a day or two while my hands get better.”
“You got money? Yankee money?”
Emma nodded. “Give you five dollars,” she said.
The man’s sudden stillness told her she had made a mistake, had offered too much. No help for it now, though. From her pocket she brought out five coins, which she had moved there earlier from the waistband of her trousers, and showed them to Deezer.
“Five dollars!” he said, and gave a low whistle. “I ain’t never had five whole dollars in my life! Where you get that money?”
Emma put a finger to her lips and smiled slyly. “Never you mind. I give you two now and three tomorrow night. We got a deal?”
Deezer licked his lips, staring at the money. “Three now and two tomorrow.”
“Done.”
They shook hands on it, and Emma handed over three dollars, slipping the other two coins back in her pocket. Deezer’s gaze followed, speculative. She would have to watch her back, she decided.
Parting from him, she returned to the camp and strolled past the campfires until she spotted Joe from the breakfast detail. She sat down beside him and struck up a conversation, hoping that Deezer, if he saw her there, would think twice about trying to rob someone who had such a large friend.
At length she stretched out on the ground and slept the dreamless sleep of the bone-weary. Before she knew it, morning had dawned gray and chill, and the men around her were groaning and griping as they got to their feet.
Emma met Deezer in the breakfast line. True to his word, he showed her the cans she must use to haul water to the troops, and directed her to the well.
The day being cool, and the well not very far from where the brigade she was serving was posted, Emma found the labor far from strenuous. She took a long time filling canteens at each place she stopped, and listened to the soldiers’ conversations. Large portions of the discourse consisted of cursing the Yankees, an activity at which the soldiers were as well-versed as their officers. At times, though, the talk turned to reinforcements, how many troops had come and from where, and how many more were expected. Emma listened avidly, though she hid her interest as she sat quietly filling canteens.
“General Johnson should arrive today, I hear,” said one soldier, a sunny-faced man no older than Emma who looked like he belonged on a farm, carrying a hoe instead of a musket.
“I heard he was expected yesterday,” said another around a wad of tobacco in his cheek. He spat a stream of dark juice onto the ground.
“Bad weather, bad roads. We’ll see him soon, and ten thousand men with him. See that old fellow there with the white beard?” The first soldier pointed along the line. “That’s General Lee.”
“General Lee? Who is he?” asked another.
“Only the best engineer in the Confederacy, that’s who! He’s come to inspect the fortifications.”
Emma paused in her work to watch Lee for a moment. He was talking to another officer—a colonel, Emma thought, though it was hard to tell at this distance. General Lee pointed toward the Federal lines, then waved a hand at the Rebel earthworks in a gesture of dismissal. Having toiled over them all the previous day, Emma found herself feeling resentful. She hid a smile, and wondered what the general’s gesture really meant.
Her cans being empty, she made her way back to the well to refill them. As the morning wore on she heard much the same gossip from all of the men to whom she carried water. Come afternoon, though, the news shifted. General Johnston had arrived, and a council of war had been called. General Lee was in attendance.
Emma continued carrying water and listening. Late in the afternoon a fresh buzz of gossip began to be heard—Yorktown was to be evacuated! General Lee had declared that the fortifications could not be held once McClellan brought his siege guns to bear.
When would the order come, and to where would the army fall back? These questions were debated endlessly among the men. Emma wished she knew the answers, or even just that the evacuation was certain. That would be news of value enough to make her expedition worthwhile.
Finding herself with a little time to spare, she carried some water to her fellow laborers of yesterday. They received it with gratitude, and after one man drank a dipperful of cool water, he looked at Emma with a puzzled expression, then nudged his neighbor.
“Jim, I’ll be darned if that feller ain’t turning white!”
Washington, D.C., 1883
You walked away unchallenged?” Jamie’s eyes glinted with interest.
“Yes,” she said, unable to help smiling. “I dared not approach our picket line. I went as close as I could and waited until morning, then hoisted my handkerchief as a signal of peace, and so returned to our camp.”
“And to the waiting arms of General McClellan.”
Emma glanced sharply at him, but decided to ignore his snide tone. “I made out my report to the general, yes.”
“Yet he did not act on the news of Yorktown’s impending evacuation.”
“He had been given what he called positive intelligence that the Confederates meant to hold Yorktown at all costs.”
“But they didn’t.”
“No. They didn’t.”
Jamie came closer, and sat in a chair opposite Emma. The way he leaned toward her, casually resting his elbows upon his thighs and clasping his hands between them, made her think of the old times. He had been used to sit just so in camp, bending near the warmth of the fire, leaning forward to murmur some tidbit of gossip. She recalled him in uniform, firelight playing in his pale hair, gleaming on the bars of his shoulder straps.
“There are some who question whether you were ever in the secret service at all,” he said softly.
Emma stiffened. “I am aware.”
“They say you made it all up for your book.”
“People make any number of ridiculous accusations against authors.”
“Do you claim every word in your memoir is true?”
His voice was soft, the prowl of a hunter. Emma drew herself up.
“No, I do not!”
She stood and began to pace, walking stiffly for her left foot was sligh
tly numb. “Of course it is not entirely true,” she continued. “I never stated in it that I was enlisted in the army, for one thing. My publisher wished to preserve the illusion that I served as a female nurse.”
She paused and looked back at Jamie, who was watching her feet. Sensing her regard, he looked up at her face.
“I was young when I wrote it,” she said. “Some of the incidents I mentioned were told to me by others. I included them because I thought they would capture the interest of the reader.”
“Such as that touching scene you described at Antietam, when the Second Michigan was nowhere near the battle.”
Jamie smiled in quiet triumph. Emma felt her ire rising, but kept her voice level.
“I did not know you had read my little book.”
“I didn’t. I heard about it from friends.”
“Perhaps you should not rely wholly upon their judgment.”
His eyes narrowed and his lips curved slyly. “Are you saying I should read it? Will I find myself flatteringly depicted?”
Emma shot him an irritated glance. “No. I do not care if you read it. In truth, I did not expect it to receive the attention it did.”
Jamie leaned back, grinning. “Now, that I find hard to believe. You were never averse to attention.”
Emma did not deign to answer this. She glanced at the closed door into Congressman Cutcheon’s office, wishing Mr. Glass would return.
“You must have made a tidy sum from that book,” Jamie said. “I know it was all the rage for a time. It cannot be money that brings you here.”
Emma fixed him with a cold gaze. “I gave every penny of my profits from that book to the relief of wounded soldiers.”
Jamie’s brows flew up in genuine surprise. “I had not heard that.”