Wreaths of Glory

by Johnny D. Boggs

  Alistair reached for the coffee pot, just to do something. Maybe Beans had tried to hide all the evidence at the farm, but considering the tempers of Lucy Cobb and Cally Durant, and the Yankee presence in this part of Missouri, well, it was just a matter of time before those girls stirred up trouble.

  “But I think I fixed things, pard.” Squatting, Beans opened one of the bags, and pulled out a tattered St. Louis Republican. He started to hand the newspaper to Alistair, but quickly decided to give it to Captain Quantrill, pointing to a column on the second page.

  Quantrill read, silently at first, then aloud, eyes flashing, voice rising like a regular Thespian treading the boards.

  I read in the Star that Federal authorities have arrested Lucy Cobb and Cally Durant for suspicion of aiding and abetting Captain Quantrill’s alleged murder of several soldiers of the First Iowa Cavalry in Clay County in April.

  It shames me that two innocent girls in their teens could be placed in harm’s way, as it should shame General Ewing and even President Abraham Lincoln. It makes me laugh that Federal soldiers are so ignorant they blame a young farmer named Alistair Durant—brother of Cally, and betrothed to Miss Cobb …

  Here, the campfire echoed with snickers. Jim Cummins punched Alistair’s arm and said: “You ain’t the greenhorn I taken your fer, boy. Betrothed! Ha!”

  “Silence,” Quantrill ordered, and continued to read.

  … for assisting in the deaths of Yankee vermin who make war on innocent farmers.

  Ask anyone in Clay County, and they will swear on a Bible that Mr. Able Durant is a peaceful farmer. He doesn’t even own a Negro slave to help out around his farm, but relies on the sweat of his own person, and that of his lone son.

  That lone son has been forced into “outlawry” by murdering jayhawkers and redlegs, men who disgrace even Union officials.

  Let me make a confession here and now. The Durant family is innocent. I, and I alone, killed those Iowa horse soldiers at the ferry on the Missouri River betwixt Liberty and Lexington. Every single one died at my hand, several after they surrendered, but, like the Union Army, I take no prisoners. I take lives. And I will kill many more.

  Remember my name, and remember it well. And never, ever forget Osceola!

  Benedict “Beans” Kimbrough

  Partisan Ranger

  Capt. William Quantrill,

  Commanding

  Around the campfire, the boys cheered, slapping Beans’ back, while Quantrill absently handed the paper to someone who wanted to see it for himself.

  “You wrote that?” Quantrill shook his head.

  Beans laughed. “By myself.”

  “You ain’t the ignorant son-of-a-bitch I taken you for,” George Todd said.

  “I don’t use rough language around my mama.”

  Frank James handed Beans a bottle of rye, and, after taking a long pull, Beans grinned and continued. “I don’t cuss in front of a preacher. But when I’m around rough people …” Laughing, he tossed the bottle to Quantrill.

  Raising a clay jug overhead, Oll Shepherd cheered.

  “Shut up!” Alistair shot to his feet. He hadn’t meant to yell, but this was all wrong. “You damned fool.” Alistair waved a finger in Beans’ face, who merely smiled, and snatched the jug from Shepherd’s grip. “Yanks didn’t even know who you were,” Alistair said. “Now you’ve given them your name.”

  Beans’ green eyes became ice. “It is a name they will well remember, too, Alistair Durant. I aim to make it known all across Kansas and Missouri.”

  “Hear, hear!” Chris Kennard thundered.

  “You …” Alistair couldn’t find the words.

  “Quiet, Mister Durant,” Quantrill said. He sipped from the bottle, passed it to Lieutenant Haller, and laughed. “You are an intelligent man, Mister Kimbrough,” Quantrill continued. “And I have need of intelligent men. You and Mister Durant will come with me. Lieutenant Haller, you shall be in charge during my absence.”

  “Where be you goin’?” Todd roared.

  “To Richmond,” Quantrill replied.

  Richmond

  Chapter Eleven

  “There.” Quantrill adjusted the blue and white polka dot cravat around Alistair’s neck, tugged on the paper collar that scratched his freshly shaved neck, and stepped back. The captain’s blue eyes sparkled, until he spotted a speck of dust, which he quickly brushed off the gray frock coat.

  Quantrill’s head started to bob, but suddenly he doubled over in laughter. The instant he managed to lift his head, his composure left him again, and he guffawed uncontrollably, until, wiping the tears from his eyes, he managed to hurry to the chest of drawers in the hotel room. Atop the chest rested a decanter of brandy. Quantrill filled a cordial, and drank.

  “You …” Making the mistake of facing Alistair, he exploded in laughter once more.

  By that time, Alistair’s ears began reddening. He glanced at Beans Kimbrough, who had stopped brushing his gaiters, but merely shrugged.

  “You … oh, my!” Finally Quantrill set down the empty cordial, dabbing his eyes with a silk handkerchief. “You look like the proverbial cat who has eaten the canary.”

  “I’m not used to all this foofaraw.” Alistair picked up the receipt lying on the divan, and flashed it at Quantrill. “And what these Virginians charge for duds is obscene.”

  Quantrill walked toward him, suddenly looking sympathetic. He cut a dashing figure. Upon arriving in the Confederate capital last week, they had stopped at a tailor’s shop on Fourteenth Street. Now, Quantrill wore light blue trousers with a yellow stripe up the seams, tucked inside gleaming black boots that came up to his knees. Underneath his dark gray, double-breasted shell jacket with a high yellow collar and the three bars identifying his rank of captain, he wore a blue silk shirt, paper collar, and black tie. Around his waist was a leather belt, a new LeMat revolver holstered on his left hip, butt forward, and a saber sheathed on his left. Yellow doeskin gauntlets and a yellow-trimmed gray kepi lay near the decanter.

  For some reason, Quantrill had stopped at another tailor to fashion the clothes Alistair and Beans picked up that morning. Not military, but civilian attire. Broadcloth pants, gaiters for Beans but boots for Alistair, formal coats, waistcoats, the finest shirts you could find in Richmond these days. When Beans had tried to sneak a pocket pistol into his frock coat, Quantrill had objected, saying that one did not call on the kings of the Confederacy with hideaway guns.

  Beans looked the part of a Virginia nobleman, but Alistair had grown up on a hard-scrabble farm. Never had he owned clothes like this. When he went to church, he’d wear a black string tie and worn frock coat, a hand-me-down from his father. He started to run a finger around the starched paper collar, which choked him like a gallows noose.

  Gently Quantrill gripped Alistair’s shoulders, and guided him toward the full-length mirror hanging near the bed.

  “You, sir, are a dashing young man,” Quantrill spoke smoothly. “The Richmond gentry will envy you. All the ladies will cast looks in your direction. Their looks will be discrete, but their thoughts shall lack any proper decorum.”

  They had splurged on hot baths, close shaves, and five-course meals in the best restaurants Richmond had to offer. The only thing Beans and Alistair would not relent to was getting their locks shorn. Alistair’s hair fell past his shoulders, and Beans’ was even longer.

  “We cut our hair,” Beans had reminded the captain, “after we’ve won, when redlegs and Yankees are burnin’ in hell.”

  Quantrill had not argued. In Missouri, such was the code of bushwhackers.

  “Seems that money would’ve been better spent,” Alistair mumbled, “on powder and lead.” Still, he picked up the silk hat and topped his head with it, tilting it slightly.

  “You are not a rake, Alistair.” Quantrill set the hat at a more proper angle.

  Seei
ng Quantrill’s grin in the mirror, Alistair couldn’t help himself. A smile stretched across his face. He’d give a bushel of corn if his parents, or Lucy Cobb, could see him now.

  “Come.” Quantrill spun, long strides carrying him to the chest of drawers, where he fetched gauntlet and kepi. “Let us call on President Davis.”

  * * * * *

  Despite seven days in Richmond, Alistair yet remained in awe. Brick, wooden, and stone buildings seemed to stretch on forever. Grain mills, ironworks, factories, warehouses, riverboats, gunboats, tanning yards, slaves, soldiers, civilians. The crisp December air felt so heavy with smoke, he found it hard to breathe. Or maybe it was just because he’d never seen so many people crowding the streets.

  The bellman at the hotel had said Richmond had boasted a population of nigh forty thousand before the war. By now, that had doubled. Some suspected that it would soon triple. Which was why they were lucky even to find a room at a decent hotel.

  “I should warn you not to tarry in the city streets after dark,” the bellman had warned Quantrill. “Undesirables have turned our fair city into a Sodom. Juveniles will rob you for the coin in your pocket. Gentlemen are not safe.”

  Quantrill had thanked the man and planted a coin in his palm. Out of earshot, he had laughed, elbowing Beans in the side. “Do you think that old boy could survive a week in Cass County?”

  Still, Alistair thought Quantrill remained alert as they wove through the throng. He clutched an ivory-tipped cane tightly in his right hand, gripping the handle of his saber with his left.

  Soon, Alistair relaxed. No criminal would try to rob them, not in broad daylight, not with ten thousand people moving, or trying to move, in the town center. Most white men hurried about like ants, too busy to notice him in his new duds. Even those ladies with their parasols and fine dresses did not give him much attention.

  He also noticed the soldiers. Scores of them, many heavily bandaged, several jaundiced, some on crutches with their pants legs pinned up above their knees—or where their knees once had been.

  One soldier laughed at Alistair’s stare, and snorted: “You shoulda been here directly after Seven Days, boy. City was filled with us invalids.”

  His companion planted a hand on the cripple’s shoulder. “Jeb here had both limbs in May.” He raised his other hand, revealing a white-wrapped stump. “And I had both hands.”

  Still another cried out: “Walk up to Chimborazo, fellas! You’ll see what it’s really like to be a soldier.”

  And yet another: “He’s too yellow to fight. Look at those habiliments.”

  Beans stopped, turned, and started to say, “I’ll tell you about Osceola. Better yet, I’ll kick your—” but Quantrill shoved him forward, almost knocking over an elderly man carrying a brown sack and a newspaper. “Keep moving,” Quantrill said angrily. “Do not engage them. And act like a darky. Do not look anyone in the eye.”

  With a curse, Beans kept up pace.

  * * * * *

  The Confederate Capitol came straight out of a storybook about Rome. Before the war, it had been the state capitol, designed in part by Thomas Jefferson.

  Quantrill hurried up the marble steps, dodging the myriad black slaves working for the War Department.

  An hour later, Alistair found himself in a spartan room, extending his hand to the Confederate Secretary of War.

  “And this,” Quantrill said, “is my other adjutant, Beans … uh, well …” A sheepish laugh escaped, and he stepped back, shaking his head. “Beans, my stalwart comrade, I believe that your true name escapes me.”

  “Benedict, Mister Secretary.” Beans shook hands. “But I prefer Beans.”

  James A. Seddon looked neither amused nor impressed. He looked perturbed, as if his day had been ruined by this meeting with a captain named Quantrill and two teenage boys in handsome suits.

  “Beans Kimbrough?” A man between forty and fifty, Seddon was balding on top with long graying hair on the sides, a high forehead, mustache and goatee, massive eyebrows, and angry eyes. His coat was out of fashion, as was his vest, and, after shaking Beans’ hand, he moved back behind his desk, and glanced at a stack of newspapers. He shuffled through two, glanced at the third, and peered at Beans. “Beans Kimbrough?” he repeated.

  “Yes, sir.” Beans looked as big a fool as Alistair.

  Quantrill cleared his throat, his face angry, and, after a moment of silence, Seddon absently gestured at the high-backed chairs in front of his desk.

  “I regret to say that President Davis cannot meet with you today, and has asked me to serve as his liaison.” Seddon sank into his chair, started to open a cigar box, changed his mind, and leaned back in the chair. Grouchily he leaned forward, his chair squeaking, and glanced at a note on his desk top, then leaned back. “You understand that Congress passed the Partisan Ranger Act last spring, and President Davis has signed it into law?”

  “Of course.” Handing Alistair his walking cane, Quantrill removed his gauntlets, sticking them under his left arm with his kepi. “And, you, I suspect, understand that Federal authorities refuse to treat us, when captured, with the respect due prisoners of war.”

  “That …”—Seddon leaned back in his chair, looking at the newspapers—“cuts both ways, according to our reports from Missouri.”

  “My lieutenants here, Kimbrough and Durant, must wear civilian attire in battle, and everywhere.” Quantrill nodded in the boys’ direction.

  Alistair and Beans shot each other curious glances, thinking the same thing. Lieutenants? Haller, Todd, Bill Gregg were lieutenants. Beans and Alistair held no rank, unless you called them privates, which none of the boys ever did.

  “Is it uniforms you seek, Captain?”

  “Far from it. In battle, we don bushwhacker shirts. Ladies of Missouri have embroidered them, decorated them. They are the envy of those soldiers in butternut and gray.”

  “And sometimes,” Seddon said, “from reports out of Missouri, you wear the uniforms of Federal soldiers.”

  Quantrill grinned. “Surprise is a most efficient tactic, Mister Secretary.”

  “What is it that you wish, Captain Quantrill?” Seddon turned blunt as a sledgehammer.

  “I would like to recruit a regiment. I would like a commission as colonel. I would like to lead a campaign in Missouri and Kansas. I would like to win this war in the West, Mister Secretary. It must be won there. You are not winning it here, sir.”

  Alistair tried to swallow, but couldn’t summon up enough spit. Quantrill could be blunt himself.

  “Captain Quantrill, we drove the Federals out this summer,” Seddon said, “when they thought they would wave the Stars and Stripes over Richmond for Independence Day. At Manassas, once more this summer, we again defeated that army, and, not two weeks back, General Lee crushed Burnside at Fredericksburg, a scant sixty miles north of here. This autumn, we earned a hard-fought victory in Maryland at Sharpsburg. In a short while, the Northern states will force President Lincoln and his Congress to sue us for peace. Yet you say we are not winning the war, Captain?”

  Quantrill smiled. “You call Sharpsburg a victory, Mister Secretary?”

  “Indeed.” Indignation flashed in Seddon’s eyes.

  “Victories such as that will cost you this war, sir. And how many men did you lose at Fredericksburg, sir?” Seddon didn’t answer. “The North can afford more casualties than your gallant General Lee, sir. Look West, my good man. Vicksburg is in trouble. You had General Grant decimated at Shiloh this spring, but let victory slip away. Fort Donelson has fallen. The Mississippi River is in danger of being in Yankee hands. The Union blockade is strong. Do you know how much it cost my adjutants and myself merely to eat breakfast this morning? I have rarely seen a bakery open past ten in the morning, and what they charge for a loaf of bread is criminal. The grain mills here fall eerily silent. This once grand city overflows with the destitute. B
esides, England has not recognized your … our government.”

  “In time.”

  “Time is short.”

  Seddon shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I warrant that you have a plan of battle, Captain?”

  “Indeed, Mister Secretary. This Secession, this revolution, this whatever you feel it should be called, whatever history will call it … well, to win, to conquer, this must be done with violence.”

  “Sharpsburg was no picnic, sir.”

  “Nor was it the Confederate victory you claim, Mister Secretary.” When Seddon began to push himself to the floor, Quantrill held out his right hand. “Hear me out, sir. I have traveled at my own expense, risked my own life and the lives of these two young Missourians, to try to help my men, and to try to help our cause, sir. You owe me that much, do not you think?”

  “Speak your piece, Captain.”

  “War is violent. War is vindictive. Men must be killed.”

  “I still wait to hear your plan of battle.” He had dropped the sir and the captain.

  “It is this … I would wage such a war to make surrender forever impossible. I would cover the Confederate armies with blood. I would invade. I would reward audacity, not temerity. I would exterminate.” Here his voice raised. “Exterminate by indiscriminate massacre.” He walked as he spoke, tossing kepi and gauntlets to Beans, and reached Seddon’s desk. His hands gripped the edge, and he leaned forward. Seddon’s face paled. “I would win the independence of our people, my people, or I would find them graves.”

  Silence filled the room. Even the clock could not be heard.

  “What of prisoners?” Seddon’s voice trembled.

  Smiling, Quantrill released his grip on the desk and laughed. “There would be no prisoners. I do not surrender. I do not panic. What I do, and what I do well, Mister Secretary, is hate. If you would leave this civilized city, I could show you how easy it is to hate when one lives in Missouri.