by Mary Mackey
“Ni and Ebenezer, Sam and Spartacus, Peet and—”
“All of them are fine. They were outnumbered at two to one, but they had surprise on their side. I hear Ni and Ebenezer planned the attack. Generals in a regular army couldn’t have done better. That stampede was a stroke of genius. Most of Clark’s men broke and ran like rabbits. The ones we took prisoner are keeping Jed Clark and his wife company in the slave pen. You should have heard Jed’s wife shriek when her own slaves put chains on her. As for Henry Clark, he’s dead. Jane shot him.”
I lay there trying to take all this in. The news seemed too good to be true. As a matter of fact, it was. Five of our men had been wounded, two gravely, but at the time William didn’t think I was up to hearing about it, and he was probably right.
He stroked my cheek tenderly. “There. That’s better. There’s no need to cry, and I have a surprise for you.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a ring, took my left hand in his, and slipped it on my third finger. I looked down and saw a gold band set with blue sapphires. “My father gave this to my mother on the day they were married.”
“How—?”
“How did I come by it? I’ll tell you the details later, but for now let’s just say it was brought to Beau Rivage by the last man we’d have expected to bring it.” He leaned over and softly brushed his lips against mine. “Carrie, sweetheart, will you marry me?”
I had already said “yes” twice before, but no matter how often he asked me that question, my answer was always going to be the same. I nodded, and he smiled.
For a long time William sat beside me holding my hand. Gradually, I felt peace stealing over me. After a while the wagon came to a halt, the rain stopped, the lantern went out, and in that almost perfect silence between dark and birdsong, I slept.
Author’s Note
The history of the Kansas Territory is not a simple subject. Between 1854 and 1861, the territory had ten governors, seven capitals, and four constitutions. At times a pro-slavery legislature and a free-state legislature were meeting simultaneously, both claiming to be the only legal legislature. In the interests of not driving the reader mad with details, I have intentionally omitted descriptions of various events, some of them major, including several murders that would lend themselves nicely to a noir mystery novel should any future author care to undertake one.
Although some of the language has been modified for modern ears, for the most part I have chosen to record things as they actually happened. For example, on May 21, 1856, an army of pro-slavers attacked Lawrence, smashing printing presses, burning the Free State Hotel, and looting homes and stores. Three days later, John Brown and his sons rode to Pottawatomie Creek and—unlikely as it may seem—killed five pro-slavers with broadswords.
On various occasions, I have exercised the novelist’s prerogative to create fictional events. Although Brown and the Adairs once hid eleven fugitive slaves for over a month in a cabin four miles west of the present town of Lane, Kansas, there is no indication Brown trained an African-American cavalry unit like the one that defeats Clark’s Raiders. However, there is a reasonable possibility that such a unit could have existed. At one point, Brown told fellow abolitionists about a plan to arm former slaves and send them into the Allegheny Mountains to fight a guerilla war against slave owners. It is unlikely that he began to implement this plan while living in Kansas, but John Brown was a man who kept many secrets.
Although Henry Clark is loosely modeled on William Quantrill, the Confederate raider who attacked Lawrence in 1863, he is a fictional character. There was never a senator from Kentucky named Bennett Presgrove, nor did the fictional Senator Presgrove attack real Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Senator Sumner was brutally beaten by South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks. I was the one who placed the cane in Bennett’s hand and let him share Brooks’s infamy.
I have previously written about the Civil War in my novel The Notorious Mrs. Winston. One question I am frequently asked is: “Was the Civil War fought over slavery?” In Kansas, slavery was the only real issue. Although it sometimes masqueraded under the banner of States’ Rights or Southern Rights, the question of whether or not Kansas was going to enter the Union free or slave was the explosive problem that polarized America, pitted North against South, and helped get Abraham Lincoln elected president. It is telling that Kansas was only admitted to the Union as a free state in January of 1861, after South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana had already seceded.
I like to imagine that if the men of Keyhole Draw had existed, Elizabeth and the Adairs would have made sure they were swiftly conducted to Canada and freedom after the Battle of Beau Rivage. When the Civil War officially began, perhaps some would have returned to Kansas to fight with the First Kansas Colored Infantry Regiment, which had the distinction of being the first unit composed of men of African descent to engage in battle with Confederate troops.
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to many people who helped me during the process of writing The Widow’s War. First, I would like to thank novelist Sheldon Greene who read every draft multiple times. As always, his feedback and suggestions were invaluable. Thanks also to Donald Worster; Bev erley Worster; Wes Jackson; Paul Kamen; the members of the WELL Experts Topic; Roy L. Hudson of the National Railway Historical Society; Jackie Cantor, my wonderful editor at Berkley Books; and my husband, Angus Wright, who, besides giving me support and encouragement, accompanied me on a research trip through Kansas and Missouri in the summer of 2006. A historian and native-born Kansan, Angus led me to the place that served as the model for Keyhole Draw and provided me with information and insights not to be found elsewhere.