With Every Drop of Blood

by James Lincoln Collier

  “Blame me if I can see why I’m not allowed to escape.”

  “There, you said it yourself. You was trying to escape,” he said. “You oughtta know that Capt’n Bartlett’ll pop me right into the stockade myself if I let you escape. I don’t aim to get out of slavery to end up in jail.”

  I’d spoke too fast and outsmarted myself. It wasn’t easy to push one past him. He was smarter than most darkies. “That was just an expression,” I said.

  “I don’t care if it was an expression. Next time you be sorry,” he said.

  “You ran off yourself. Why shouldn’t I?”

  “That was different,” Cush said.

  “What was different about it?”

  “Because slavery’s agin Scripture.”

  “No, it isn’t,” I said. “I already told you that.”

  “How can any Christian believe in slavery when Jesus said flat-out all people was to be brothers unto each other?”

  “Oh?” I said. “Well what about Genesis, where it says, ‘Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.’ It’s clear enough—God made the colored black so’s they could be told apart from whites.”

  “Where does the Bible say a fella ought to be whipped until his back is raw just because he took a piece of pork from a pig he’d done the work of raisin’?”

  “Your pa got whipped for that?”

  “Me. I got whipped for it. After Pa was sold off south.”

  It was a hard thing to argue. Back home we’d hear about this one or that one who was hard on his slaves, but the way people put it, it wasn’t the usual thing. People said most masters were too soft on their slaves and didn’t beat them near enough, for darkies were lazy, would steal anything that wasn’t tied down, and would eat you out of house and home if you didn’t watch them close. People said most masters would be a sight better off without slaves, but only allowed them to stay out of kindness, for darkies didn’t have the brains to take care of themselves if they was turned loose.

  But I could see now that was only one side to it. I never asked a darky how they felt about being slaves. Was everybody back home wrong? I decided to change the subject. “How’d you manage to run off, Cush?”

  “It was after Pappy was sold. Marse Stevens didn’t have him to whip no more and turned hisself loose on me. I saw pretty quick that lessen I got away I was going to have a back as shiny as Pa’s was. Right after that the war started. My chance come when some Union cavalry rammed through Marse Stevens’ farm, foraging. They was fighting all around us and the Federals was all over the place, looking for dinner. Marse Stevens and the family went up into the woods and hid. Finally the Federals were chased out and I just run on out of there.”

  “How come your ma didn’t go?”

  “I tried to get her to, but she wouldn’t. She was scairt. So I went by myself. Run up a stream a mile to throw the dogs off.”

  “They sent dogs after you?”

  “Sure did. I could hear ’em hootin’ and hollerin’ way off in the distance, but they couldn’t pick up the scent, on account of me running up that stream. The next day I come across a camp of Federals, and I was gone.”

  Well, if Cush’s Marse Stevens was ripe to send dogs after a slave who’d run off, it didn’t appear he was letting him stay on the farm out of kindness. But I didn’t want to get into that. “What happened after you found the Federals?”

  “They sent me north with a trainful of colored, up to Washington.”

  “You been to Washington?”

  “Sure I been there,” Cush said. “I seen the White House and all. We marched right past it. They said President Lincoln hisself was standing on the steps watching us go by. Some of them said they saw him—could make him out just as plain, wearin’ that stovepipe hat the way he is in pictures. If you ask me, they was seein’ things, for I didn’t see him and I looked mighty hard.”

  Here I’d never been to Richmond, and wasn’t likely to get there, neither, the way things was working out, and Cush’d been to Washington. “I don’t see where you were any better off if they put you in the army than you were back home.”

  “They didn’t put me in no army. I joined up of my own free will.”

  “You didn’t have to fight?”

  “There ain’t no law sayin’ the colored got to fight. I wanted to fight. I just had to. How could I go gallivantin’ around Washington, havin’ a good time for myself, when Mammy and Pappy was still in slavery? I couldn’t live with myself if I done that.”

  I could see that, for I’d have done the same myself. In fact, when you got down to it, I already did get myself in the middle of the war to get even for Pa. It was an awful lot to think about. The truth was, I never gave the darkies much thought one way or another. Up there on High Top Mountain the mules were more important to us than darkies. But now I’d got to know a darky, and I could see it wasn’t simple. It made my head ache. But at least I’d led Cush off my try at escaping and into a good ramble. I had other things to think about, anyway, for when we stopped at noon to water the livestock and eat some hardtack, the soldiers were saying that with luck we’d be in City Point by nightfall.

  I didn’t have much time left. And now Cush was going to keep a sharp eye on me. He wouldn’t take chances with me. What could I do? The idea of getting sent off to a prison camp made me just sick. What would happen to Ma and the little ones? What would happen to me? Even the poor mules—it’d go hard with them, too, for like as not the Federals would take them in the army, where there was a chance they’d be blown to bits. I hoped Pa was looking down on me, for he’d see I felt awful for what I did and wasn’t taking it light. But that didn’t help me to escape.

  At the end of the afternoon we came down a slope to the James River. City Point wasn’t far. Below us, strung across the river, was the famous pontoon bridge the papers were full of the year before. General Lee had figured that he could hold the Federals north of the James, for it would be hard for them to cross it. But practically overnight the Federals built a pontoon bridge across it, near a half mile long. I always wondered what it was like, and there it was just below me—a plank roadway running across the tops of a line of little boats anchored in the river. We went down the slope and across the bridge, the hooves and wheels making a loud drumming sound on the planks. Even though it was a Union bridge, it gave me a kind of thrill to cross it. We reached City Point as the sun was setting. The town was set up on a bluff above the point where the James and Appomattox rivers joined up. It was all confusion, a place that the war had made, for it was mostly tents, sheds, and wooden huts thrown up in a hurry by the bluecoats. You could see the original houses scattered around in the midst of the tents and huts. Before the war City Point wasn’t much of a place, but it was all abustle now. As the wagon train rolled in along the main street, I could hear the roar and clang of railroad engines, see the steam from them rising in white streams and spreading across the city. Farther along, down at the end of the street where the bluff fell off, I caught a glimpse of a couple of docks and the river full of boats—some at anchor, some sailing up or down the James, some tied up at the docks where streams of men were filing up one gangplank and down another carrying boxes, sacks, barrels of—well, I supposed it was guns, shoes, cannon balls. It made my heart sink to see it, for it was just the way Pa said—the Yankees had us beat every which way when it came to war supplies and shipping. Here it all was, ships full of it, railroad cars full of it, all coming into City Point to be thrown at Bobby Lee.

  Our little wagon train swung off the main street onto a rough dirt wagon trail that wound along through the tent city. In a little bit we came to a big tent with a wood sign over the door saying 7TH REGIMENT, XXV CORPS. I knew what that was: a regiment was a thousand men and a corps was a bunch of regiments together.

  The wagon train stopped, and Cush jumped off the wagon. “This here’s my outfit, Reb.” He pointed. “We got our huts right over there.”

  I sat there on Regis th
inking about making a break for it. The wagon train was breaking up. The soldiers were unloading the stuff they captured from us, and carting it into a sort of warehouse across the way. When the wagons were empty, they led them off somewhere down the wagon road through the tent city. There was a good deal of light around from torches and lanterns, but even so I couldn’t make out where they were going with the horses and wagons.

  What if I just started the mules going, like I was supposed to be taking them someplace, and waltzed on out of there? What would Cush do when he came out of the regimental tent and found me gone? Would they put him in prison for letting me get away? I didn’t know—but it might work. So I gave Regis a kick with my heels and snapped the reins, and that moment Cush came out of the regimental tent with a white officer in tow. He pointed at me. “That’s him, Captain Bartlett.”

  I let go of the reins so it wouldn’t look like I was trying to escape again. They came up to me. I decided to clamber down off the mule and salute, so as to get on the officer’s good side if I could. “Where’d you come from?”

  “Shenandoah Valley, sir. They sent me off with our mules and wagon to join the wagon train,” I said, trying to make it sound like it wasn’t my fault I was against them. “Those mules are mighty hard to control by anyone but me.”

  He didn’t answer that. Instead he said, “How old are you, son?”

  “Fourteen.”

  “Long way from home.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “He was learning me to read, sir,” Cush said.

  Captain Bartlett went on looking at me. “Your folks Rebels?”

  I thought of lying and saying that we were against secession, but I was too proud to do it. “Pa was shot at Cedar Creek and died from it.”

  Captain Bartlett looked grim and shook his head. “Son, do you think the whole thing is worth losing your pa for?”

  “Pa said it was states’ rights. He said the Yankees had no right—” Suddenly I realized I better keep my mouth shut if I wanted to get on his good side.

  He snorted. “States’ rights is nonsense. The Constitution’s clear enough about that. Ever read it?”

  Well, the truth was, I hadn’t. I guess if the war hadn’t come and I’d got more schooling, I’d have read it. “Not exactly, sir.”

  “Read it sometime. It won’t take long. It starts off with the words, ‘We the people of the United States,’ not ‘We the states.’ You can’t have every state that disagrees with the laws thumbing its nose at the national government and going off by itself.”

  I knew I shouldn’t argue with him, but he was getting my dander up. “Sir, Virginia didn’t go off alone.”

  “It wasn’t the majority, son. The majority has to rule.”

  “Sir, I don’t see how it’s different from when the U.S. busted away from England in the Revolution.”

  He shook his head. “Back then the states never agreed to be part of England. That was England’s idea. When the United States was formed, the people in all the states agreed to take part and put the Constitution over them.

  They can’t choose to walk out anytime things don’t suit them.” He clapped his hands together. “I can’t stand here arguing politics all night. Private Turner, take him down to the stockade. There’s a prison train going north in a couple of days.”

  Chapter Ten

  There it was. What could I do? I was stuck. All I could think of was the places where I could have stopped it. Thinking about it being too late is one of the awfulest feelings.

  Then Cush said, “Captain Bartlett, mebbe we ought to hang on to this here Reb for a few days. He mighty handy with them mules of his. I don’t know as anyone else can handle them.” It took me by surprise and I held my breath, for I knew it wasn’t true. Those mules could be persnickety, but they weren’t all that difficult.

  “Mules are mules,” Captain Bartlett said. “Any good mule driver is supposed to be able to handle them.”

  Cush shook his head. “Not these here animals, sir. I seen for myself, for I tried to drive ’em once. Couldn’t budge ’em.”

  Captain Bartlett gave me a look. “Is that true?”

  What could I say to convince him? “I got a way with them. They’re used to me. I won’t say nobody else couldn’t learn to manage them if you gave him time, but I reckon they’d be almighty balky to start.”

  “I’ve got more important things to do than to worry about this,” Captain Bartlett said. “How are you going to keep him from running away, Private Turner?”

  “We could lock him in the guardhouse when he ain’t needed.”

  “All right, all right. But if there’s trouble over it, Private Turner, it’s your neck.” He turned, and went back into the headquarters building.

  We took the mules down to a big corral they had in the middle of the tent city, unhitched them, and turned them into the corral. We pushed the wagon into a line of other wagons up against the corral fence, and then Cush said, “Come on along with me, Reb. I got to lock you up.”

  But I didn’t follow him right off. Instead, I stood there in the flickering light of the camp lanterns and fires, watching the yellow reflect off his black face, feeling a whole lot of different things. “Cush, how come you did that for me?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know, Reb. I just didn’t like to see you gettin’ shoved off to no prison camp. Like to die in one of them places.”

  “Why would it matter to you? I’m supposed to be trying to put you back into slavery.”

  He shrugged again, like he was embarrassed to talk about it. “Well, you been to a lot of trouble learning me to read so’s I can better myself. A lot of white folks down here wouldn’t of done that.”

  I blushed so hot I thought my face would melt. “Oh, I didn’t learn you very much. Most likely I didn’t get it all right anyway. I don’t know as I got the hang of all those big words myself.” Oh, how I wished I hadn’t taught him wrong—or even at all. What was I going to tell him when he got on to me about that blame speech again?

  “No, Reb. A lot of white folks down here say it ain’t right to teach a nigger to read. But you was willin’.”

  I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “What’s the guardhouse like?”

  “Old stone storehouse where they used to keep tobacco that was to be shipped out. Put bars on the windows.”

  “Who’s in there now?”

  “Just some Yank soldiers who got theirselves in trouble one way or another. They won’t bother you none—got too much misery of they own.”

  He took me over. A couple of black guards shoved me in, gave me some hardtack, dried apples, and a worn-out blanket that smelled like a barn. I ate, rolled myself up, and the next thing I knew sunlight was streaming in the windows, even though they were barred and so dirty you could hardly see out of them. After a while Cush showed up. The guards let me out and off we went together to the corral. Already a lot of colored soldiers were milling around in the corral to chase down their teams and harness them up to the wagons lined up against the corral fence. We got my mules out, fed them, and curried them. We harnessed them up, and in a bit the order came down the line to move out. I snapped the reins and clucked a couple of times to Bridget, and off we went.

  There were maybe twenty wagons in the train. We rode out through the city of tents, and down the main street of City Point toward the water. Below I could see a big wooden warehouse, the docks, the boats in the river, a string of railroad cars sitting on a siding, an engine puffing to itself, and soldiers marching up and down gangplanks of a ship tied to the docks, carrying out barrels and boxes. A ship whistle boomed, shouts and orders flew; the railroad engine puffed, gave off a shrill whistle, and then began to clang slowly along the tracks. It was mighty exciting to see, and if I hadn’t been a prisoner a long way from home, I’d have enjoyed it.

  The wagon train pulled down the hill and then swung around in a half circle across the front of the warehouse. Cush hopped out of the wagon. “Come on, Reb, we got to load
up.” I followed him into the warehouse. My, what a sight of stuff there was there: boxes, barrels, crates, and a whole lot of things lying loose—a stack of blue blankets, a heap of worn shoes, a pile of mess kits, and a mountain of old blue Federal uniforms they hadn’t got around to sorting out. A colored sergeant sitting at a desk by the door to the warehouse flipped through some papers. He pointed inside. “Them kegs of powder,” he said. “That’s your load, gents.”

  Cush made a face. “Nobody likes taking powder up to the front none. The Rebs hit your wagon with a shell and it be raining mules and soldiers for a week.”

  We started to work, carrying the little kegs of powder out and loading them into the wagon. It was hot work, for the sun was full up now, and it was going to be a hot day. I was sweating pretty good, and after about the tenth trip out of the wagon I skipped back a ways into the warehouse, where it was cool and dark. I took a quick look around. Just ahead of me was the mountain of blue Federal uniforms. I jumped around behind it, figuring to sit down where nobody could see me and rest for a couple of minutes. I dropped down into the heap and just then a thought struck me. I stood, stripped off my clothes. Quickly I sorted through the heap of uniforms, looking for a jacket and trousers my size. A lot of the stuff was worn and dirty, and some had holes the size of bullets—it was kind of sad seeing holes in the breast of a jacket and no hole in the back. But I found a pair of trousers that weren’t too dirty, and a jacket with just a little tear in the sleeve. Finding a cap was easier, and two minutes later I was turned into a bluecoat.

  I skipped on out from behind the heap of uniforms, grabbed a powder keg, hauled it out to the back of the wagon, and heaved it in. Cush was up in the front. He took a quick look back. “Hey, soldier, this here our wagon,” he said.

  I grinned. “Sure is, soldier.”

  Cush’s mouth opened up, and he scrambled back over the kegs to me. “What the devil you do to yourself, Reb?”