by Lynn Austin
“I’ll go find out for you, Caroline,” Daddy said. “In the meantime, you’ve got to keep your hopes up.” But I saw him swallow a good stiff drink to fortify himself before leaving on horseback. I waited, sick at heart, unable to hug Tessie with her enormous belly in the way. I told myself that if Daddy galloped up the hill, the news would be good; if he took his time coming home, the news was bad.
“ ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,’ ” Tessie read aloud, “ ‘I will fear no evil: for thou art with me. . . .’ ”
I waited. One hour slowly turned into two.
When I heard a horse trotting up the street I forced myself to walk downstairs to the foyer. Daddy burst through the door, his face flushed and dripping with sweat. “He’s all right, Caroline. Charles and Jonathan both came through it safely.”
I sank to the floor, weeping and thanking God.
On a hot, muggy day in August, the police arrested a Richmond woman named Mary Caroline Allan on charges of espionage. I had been making regular trips to Mr. Ferguson’s booth in the farmers’ market with the information I’d gleaned from social gatherings and from my father’s many visitors, and the news of Mrs. Allan’s arrest alarmed me, reminding me of the dangerous path I was treading.
On the very same day, Tessie went into labor. Ruby and Esther settled her into their quarters above the kitchen and forbade me to come anywhere near her. But I could hear Tessie’s cries of pain through the open windows, her suffering intensified by the afternoon’s sticky heat.
When Esther finally emerged with the good news that evening, she was wringing with sweat herself. “Tessie had herself a boy,” she said with a weary smile. “Another beautiful little boy. And I got myself a grandchild.” I was finally allowed upstairs to see them. “But just for a minute,” Esther warned.
Tessie looked exhausted but radiant. Her son, whom she’d named Isaac, had Josiah’s dark, scowling face. Tears filled my eyes as I thought of Grady.
“You go on out, now,” Esther said, shooing me. “I gonna give Tessie a bite to eat, then she gonna have herself a rest.”
Daddy had gone downtown on business, but I sat in the stair hall that sultry evening, watching out the window for his return. I barely gave him time to come through the front door before confronting him with the news. “Tessie had her baby . . . a little boy.”
Daddy looked flustered. “Well. I see.” Neither of us had ever said a word about her pregnancy but he certainly must have noticed it.
“I have a question,” I said, following him into the library. “Does her baby belong to us or to Jonathan, since he owns the baby’s father, Josiah?”
Daddy stared into space for a moment. “Josiah’s the father? Are you sure?” Then he came out of his trance and glanced around the room as if he weren’t sure where he was or how he got there. “Well. It doesn’t really matter who sired it. The child is the property of whoever owns the mother. Negro women never tell the truth about who the sire is.”
I drew a deep breath. “In that case, I would like to own the baby—as my servant. I know all the servants will be mine someday, but in the meantime I would like one of my own.”
Daddy sank into his chair, his eyes never leaving mine. “Why? What are you going to do with him?”
“I don’t know, but—”
“He’s not a toy, Caroline, not something that you can play with like a rag doll. That’s what you did with Tessie’s other boy and I should have put a stop to it from the very beginning. Slaves are valuable pieces of property.”
“I’d like him to be my property,” I said, forcing the words from my mouth. “When he’s old enough, Gilbert can teach him to drive a carriage. I’ll need my own driver once Charles and I are married. Look, I’ll buy the child from you if you’d like. But I really want to own him, Daddy.” I gazed up at him the way I had as a little girl, begging for favors—the look he’d never been able to resist.
“If that would please you, Sugar . . . all right. But make sure you put him to work. Don’t spoil him. If he grows up to be as big and strong as Josiah, he’ll be worth a pretty penny.”
I made Daddy draw up the ownership papers that same night, making the slave, Isaac Fletcher, my legal property. As soon as the ink dried, I went straight up to my room and transferred my deed of ownership to Isaac, writing it on the back of the same paper, using the legal terms my father had used. I hadn’t even owned my slave for five minutes before granting him his freedom.
When I climbed the steep ladder that night to the stifling slaves’ quarters above the kitchen, Isaac was nursing at Tessie’s breast. I knelt beside them, listening to his soft, baby coos and to the gentle lullaby Tessie hummed as his tiny fingers curled around hers. I could remember her humming the same tune to me years ago.
When the baby finally slept, I gave Tessie the paper. I watched as she read it in wonder and disbelief, trying to absorb what it meant.
“Isaac is free, Tessie,” I said. “That paper proves it.”
“My boy . . . my son is a free man?”
“Yes. No one can ever take him from you.”
Then we both wept.
Chapter Twenty-two
Fall 1863
The weather stayed warm for a long time during the fall of 1863, giving us a near-perfect Indian summer. But even the finest weather couldn’t dispel the twin shadows of poverty and defeat that closed in on Richmond. It became a common sight to see some of the city’s wealthiest families, their clothes threadbare, trying to sell their jewelry and other valuables in order to eat.We still had some of Daddy’s gold, but it did little good since so many of the stores had empty shelves. The goods that were available sold for such exorbitant prices that I watched Daddy’s “fortune” rapidly dwindle.
The Confederate dollar had depreciated until it was worth only four cents. The shoes I had bought Gilbert six months ago now sold for four times as much. The four-dollar butter Esther had complained about seemed cheap with butter now selling for fifteen dollars a pound. We ate a lot of potatoes, but even they were expensive at twenty-five dollars a bushel. And flour, if you could find it, had gone from six dollars a barrel three years ago to as much as three hundred dollars a barrel. With heating fuel scarce and very costly, everyone dreaded winter.
News of the battles raging out west added to the gloom. Federal troops occupied Chattanooga, eastern Tennessee, and the Cumberland Gap. Our Rebel forces under General Bragg won an impressive victory at Chickamauga, but it cost him two-fifths of his men. The North, with its larger population, could replace their losses with fresh troops; the Confederates had no way to replace their soldiers when they fell in combat.
By November, General Ulysses Grant had taken command of the Federals. From Tennessee, they began pushing our Confederate forces back, driving them from Lookout Mountain, inching their way toward Atlanta.
Even with all this suffering, neither Daddy nor anyone else in Richmond talked of losing the war or abandoning the fight for Southern independence. Like the Old Testament pharaoh, their hearts grew harder, leaving me to wonder how many more plagues we would have to endure before the slaves finally won their freedom.
My father still entertained important guests—although on a more modest scale than before—and I continued to collect information and pass it along to Mr. Ferguson. I made it a point to learn more about military tactics so I would know which questions to ask and which facts were important. I became very skilled at acquiring information and remembering details. I not only told the Yankees what the Rebels’ plans and movements were, but I told them what the Rebels already knew of the North’s movements and strengths.
I no longer felt remorse at deceiving my father or using him this way. Not after eavesdropping on his conversation with Mr. St. John one afternoon. “I might be forced to sell some of my slaves this winter so we’ll have fewer mouths to feed,” Daddy said.
I nearly cried out. I had come into his library on the pretense of looking for a book to read, hopin
g to pick up some new information from the two men, but Daddy’s words stunned me. I wanted to plead with him not to do this, but I was afraid that if I let him know I was listening he would stop discussing his plans. I randomly pulled A Tale of Two Cities from the shelf and pretended to leaf through it, biting my lip as I listened.
“I didn’t think you could get a decent price for slaves these days,” Mr. St. John said. “I’d sell a few of mine, too, if I thought that I could get a fair price for them.”
“No, no, they’re not selling for anywhere near what they’re worth,” Daddy said. “I could use the money, but that’s not why I’m thinking of selling them. Frankly, food is just too hard to come by, and I don’t want the expense of feeding so many slaves this winter.”
“I know what you mean,” Mr. St. John said. “The way things are, it hardly seems worth feeding one just so she can polish the silver.”
“Caroline and I can probably get by with two maidservants,” Daddy said. “After all, there’s only two of us. And I really don’t need two menservants either, since we only have the one mare to care for. But it will be hard to decide whether to sell Eli or Gilbert. They’re both good slaves.”
I couldn’t listen to any more. I closed Dickens’ book and hurried from the room with it. By the time I reached the backyard where Eli was hoeing his vegetable patch, my tears were falling fast. Eli took one look at my face and dropped the hoe to run to me.
“It ain’t Massa Charles, is it?” he asked, gripping my shoulders to steady me. “I seen Mr. St. John come, but I didn’t think—”
“No, Charles is all right. It’s . . . it’s you and the others, Eli . . .” I wanted to lean against his broad chest and sob, but Eli took my arm and led me into the carriage house before trying to comfort me.
“Go ahead, Missy . . . it’s all right,” he soothed as he finally wrapped his arms around me. “You can tell me all about it . . . it’s okay. . . .”
But it wasn’t okay. I remembered the expression of joy on Gilbert’s face the day Daddy returned home from blockade running, how Ruby and the others had spread a banquet in celebration, how Esther had cooked all his favorite foods. They loved Daddy, trusted him, served him faithfully—yet he planned to sell them as if they were simply useless possessions he no longer needed. I didn’t want to tell Eli the terrible truth, but I knew that I had to. When I could control my tears, I raised my head to look up at him.
“My father is planning to sell three of you before winter,” I said.
For a moment, Eli appeared not to believe my words. Then an expression of such intense pain filled his eyes that I had to look away. “It’s okay. . . .” hemurmured, “God gonna have His way . . . it’s okay. . . .”
“No, it’s not,” I shouted. “I can’t part with any of you. This is wrong, Eli. Help me think of a way to stop him.”
“Can’t nobody stop him, Missy. We can only pray and trust God to—”
“No! You can’t let him do this. You have to escape to freedom, Eli. All of you.”
“Escape?” He said it as if he’d never heard the word.
“Yes. I’ll never let my father sell you. Never. I’ll help all of you run away first.”
I could see that Eli was deeply shaken. He had to sit down. “It ain’t an easy thing to go running off, you know. Esther’s ankles always swelling up . . . and Tessie has my little grandbaby to think about. Ain’t such an easy thing.”
“You don’t have to go far. As soon as you cross over to the Yankee lines you’ll be free. The Yankees are right here in Virginia. They have troops stationed at Williamsburg and Norfolk. I can draw you a map. Here . . .” I opened the book I still held in my hand and ripped out the title page. “Do you have something I can write with?”
Eli simply stared into space. The look of sorrow in his eyes was so profound it broke my heart. “Please don’t give up, Eli. I’m doing everything I can to help the North win this war so you’ll be free, but you’ve got to think of yourself and the others in the meantime. You’ve got to be ready to escape if my father goes through with this.”
“All right,” he finally said. “All right . . . There’s a pencil in that box over there.”
I dug through the wooden crate where Eli kept the horse brushes and some extra lengths of rope. Packed away near the bottom, wrapped in a clean rag, was his Bible—and a pencil. Using the lid of the crate for a table, I drew Eli a map of the route to Williamsburg, explaining it to him as I drew. Then I showed him another route, crossing the James River and going south to Norfolk.
“I want you to tell the others about this,” I said when I finished. “They have to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. I’m quite sure that my father won’t give us any warning, so make sure Gilbert pays close attention to his movements. If Daddy drives down to the slave auction on Fourteenth Street . . .”
“Okay, Missy. We all be ready,” Eli said. He hadn’t looked this sorrowful since the day they’d taken Grady away. “But I’m gonna be praying that God change your Daddy’s mind so we don’t have to go nowhere. God can do that, you know. I be praying that we never have to use this map.”
My task of spying took on a new urgency. The North had to win—and soon. For a full week after I’d overheard my father’s plans I lived with the fear that he had already sold some of our servants without my knowledge. Each time a carriage or a wagon passed the house, I worried that it had come from the slave auction, that two burly men would jump out and drag away Ruby or Luella or Gilbert the way they had dragged poor Grady. Then one night while Daddy and I were eating dinner he said, “Caroline, I’ve been forced to make a very difficult decision.”
I stopped eating, waiting.
“I had a meeting with President Davis a few days ago,” Daddy said. “He asked me to return to blockade running.”
“What?” It took a moment for his words to sink in—he wasn’t announcing that he had sold our servants. I closed my eyes, bowing my head in relief. Daddy mistook my reaction for grief.
“I know you’re upset, Sugar, but I have to do it. The Yankees have a fleet blocking Charleston harbor, another squadron at Wilmington, North Carolina—that’s why goods are so expensive. And so scarce. Our soldiers need medicine and guns. . . . The Confederacy needs my help. I’m sorry, but I’m going to do what the president asked.”
“When will you leave?”
“There are a few things I need to take care of first,” he said, looking away, “but as soon as I possibly can.”
I knew by the way he avoided my gaze that one of those things was to sell three of our slaves. They would have to flee tonight unless I could convince my father to change his mind. Then I suddenly had another idea—but it meant taking a huge risk.
“Daddy, can I tell you something?”
“Certainly, Sugar.”
“I overheard you telling Charles’ father that you might sell some of the slaves.”
“Now, Caroline—”
“No, listen. I admit that I was upset about it at first, but I feel differently now that I know you’re leaving. It’s such a huge responsibility for me to take care of this house and six servants all by myself. I’m so worried that we’ll all starve this winter. I agree with you that we should sell some of them.”
“It’s a relief to hear you say that, Caroline. I was afraid you would fuss.”
“No, this war has forced me to change. And I know they have to be sold. If you tell me who to contact, I’ll take care of selling them for you. I could use a week or two to decide which ones to part with—and I know you’ll want to set sail before the winter storm season begins.”
“Are you certain you can do this?” he asked.
“I’m certain.”
He reached for my hand. “You’ve grown into a strong young woman, Caroline. I’m proud of you.”
My father gave me the names and addresses of two slave traders a few days before Gilbert and I drove him to the train station. “What you gonna tell him when he come home and see y
ou ain’t sold nobody?” Gilbert asked as we waved good-bye to him.
“Hopefully the war will be over by then,” I said, “and you’ll all be free.”
When I returned home, my servants came to me, one by one, and thanked me for what I had done for them. I didn’t know how we would all get through the coming winter, but I knew that we would take care of each other and that God would provide.
My new concern was how to continue gathering military secrets without my father. I turned to Sally for help without her ever knowing it. “I’m bored and lonely now that Daddy’s gone,” I told her. “Will you help me plan some parties or something for entertainment?”
Sally, with her vivacious personality, eagerly embraced the idea. “I would love to. We could have musical evenings, put on plays . . . I know all sorts of parlor games. And let’s have a dance, Caroline. Oh, it’s been so long since I’ve danced. Who shall we invite?”
“I was thinking that some of our army officers and government officials and their wives could use some cheering up,” I said. “Your family knows all those people don’t they?”
“Oh, yes. Mother and Daddy know everyone.” She gripped my arm, her eyes dancing with excitement. “I know, we could start a ‘starvation club.’ ”
“What’s that?”
“It’s when everyone gets together for an evening of socializing, but the hostess doesn’t serve any refreshments. In fact, she’s forbidden to serve anything—mainly because no one can really afford it. But it still gives us an excuse to spend an evening in each other’s company.”
Food or no food, an invitation to one of the parties Sally and I hosted quickly became a coveted thing in Richmond that winter, offering welcome relief from the sadness and privation of war. Sally and I also started up the sewing circle again, gathering all the society wives together to knit socks and scarves and mittens for our soldiers. The women’s conversation often proved a richer source of information than their husbands’.