by John Jakes
A fraction late, he heard the wet boots squeaking. He quickly folded the draft and glanced at the man whose shadow had fallen on the table. The man was fat, huge, his fusty suit large as a tent. He had dark hair, sly eyes, a conspiratorial air. He licked his lips.
“Have I the honor of addressing Mr. Lamar Powell?”
Powell wished that he had brought his four-barrel Sharps tonight. Could this gross fellow be some spy of Winder’s on the prowl for critics of the President?
“What do you want?” Powell retorted.
Put off by the nonanswer, the stranger cleared his throat. “You were pointed out as Mr. Powell. I’ve been searching for you for several days. I am interested in, ah, certain of your plans. May I sit down and explain? Oh, forgive me—my name is Captain Bellingham.”
That night, Bent celebrated by drinking himself into a stupor in his rooming house. Mr. Lamar Powell was shrewd. He had not uttered so much as a syllable to confirm his part in any conspiracy against the government, nor indeed given the slightest indication that such a conspiracy existed. Yet by glance and inflection and gesture, he left no doubt. He was involved, and he could use trustworthy recruits—especially a Maryland-born Southern sympathizer lately wounded in service with General Longstreet.
Not only had it been necessary for Bent to tell those lies, but he had been required to state some fundamental beliefs—extremely risky, but vital if he was to convince Powell of his sincerity. He said he hated to see the South misruled, the war lost, the great principles sullied by King Jeff the First. He wanted the dictator removed, if not by the ballot, then by other means.
Powell had listened, then made a small concession. After further reflection on the captain’s story, he would be in touch at the address the captain had provided, if—if—there was any reason for contact. He didn’t state that there would be, but his manner clearly suggested it.
Powell questioned him hard as to how and where he had heard Powell’s name. Bent refused to answer. Being stubborn on that point was a risk, of course. Yet if Powell deemed him too pliable, he might not want his services. So Bent dug in and repeatedly said no, he could reveal nothing about his sources.
He left Powell in the hotel bar, got drunk in his rooming house, and settled down to wait. A week, a month—whatever it took. Meantime, he had another little scheme to occupy him now that he was in the same city as Orry Main. Bent’s presence was unknown to him. He could take him by surprise.
Ashton left the house on Grace Street at half past six the next evening. The air felt sharply cooler, though ugly black clouds continued to roll out of the northwest. The storm weather had persisted a long time, but the relief was welcome.
Tugging on her gloves, she hurried down the long front stoop. She was so busy anticipating her evening with Powell that she failed to see the man half concealed behind one of the large brick pillars at the foot of the steps. He hurled himself in front of her.
“Mrs. Huntoon?”
“How dare you startle me that—oh!” She clutched her hat in the stiff wind, recognizing him: a huge heap of dark broadcloth, a fat face beneath a broad-brimmed hat. He had called on her once before, though his name eluded her. He carried an oilskin tube under his arm.
“Excuse me, I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said, darting looks at the house. “Is there some spot close by where we might hold a private conversation?”
“Your name again?”
“Captain Erasmus Bellingham.”
“That’s right. General Longstreet’s corps.”
“The Invalid Corps now, I’m afraid,” Bent replied with his most soulful expression. “I am out of the army.”
“When you called the first time, you said you were a friend of my brother’s.”
“If I left that impression, I regret it. I am not a friend, merely an acquaintance. On that occasion you stated that your feelings toward Colonel Main were—may we say—less than cordial? That is why I came back tonight—my first opportunity to do so since my release from Chimborazo Hospital.”
“Captain, I am on my way somewhere, and I’m late. Come to the point.”
Tap-tap went his fingers, plump white sausages, on the oilskin tube. “I have a painting here. I should like to show it to you, that’s all. I am not trying to sell it, Mrs. Huntoon—I wouldn’t part with it. But I think you will find it of great interest all the same.”
That same evening, Charles reached Barclay’s Farm. He had invited Jim Pickles to come along, explaining en route that he was romantically involved with the widow Barclay. Jim whooped and hollered and waved his hat, which now had a turkey feather stuck in the band; he was imitating Stuart but couldn’t find an ostrich plume. Jim thought what Charles had said was fine news, though, curiously, Charles silently questioned his own good sense even as he related how he felt.
Gus hugged and kissed him warmly, and when she went out to supervise the killing of two hens for supper, Jim nudged his fellow scout. “You’re a lucky gent, Charlie. She’s a dandy.” Charles continued to puff his cob pipe in silence and toast his bare feet at the kitchen hearth; the rain through which they had ridden was hard and cold.
Supper was cheerful and boisterous for a while. But talk of the war couldn’t be avoided. Everyone expected a new siege of Charleston to begin soon. In the West, Bragg was being pressed by Rosecrans. Brave Morgan, after a twenty-five-day mounted raid through Kentucky and Indiana, had been captured at Salineville, Ohio, the preceding week. Nothing pleasant or consoling in any of that.
Gus remarked that she couldn’t feel happy about the recent riots, which had claimed the lives of blacks as well as whites in New York City. Over two million dollars’ worth of property had been ruined before units of Meade’s army arrived from Pennsylvania to quell the disturbances. Those statements—more specifically, Charles’s response to them—started an argument.
“You ought to feel happy about it, Gus. We need help wherever we can find it.”
“You can’t be serious. That was butchery, not war. Women knifed to death. Little children stoned—”
“Nasty, I’ll admit. But we can’t be tender hearts any longer. Even when we win, we lose. In every battle, both sides expend men, horses, ammunition. The Yanks can afford it—they have plenty of everything. We don’t. If they ever find a general who catches on to that, it will be all over for our side.”
She shivered. “You sound so bloodthirsty—”
His temper gave way. “And you sound disapproving.”
The old defense, a brittle smile, went into place. “Mr. Pope and I wonder about the cause of your bad disposition.”
“My disposition’s no concern of—”
But she quoted right on top of that: “‘Perhaps was sick—’” an instant’s hesitation. “‘—in love, or had not dined?’”
Gnawing a chicken wing, Jim asked, “Who’s Mr. Pope? Some farmer around here?”
“A poet Mrs. Barclay favors, you dunce.”
“Charles, that’s rude,” she said.
He sighed, “Yes. I’m sorry, Jim.”
“Oh—don’t matter,” Jim answered, his eye on the bone.
“I’d still like to know why you’re so disagreeable, Charles.”
“I’m disagreeable because we’re losing, goddamn it!” On the last word he knocked his pipe against the hearth so hard the stem snapped.
They smoothed over the quarrel later—she took the initiative—and made love twice between midnight and morning. But damage had been done.
Next afternoon, the clouds cleared as the men started their return ride to camp below the Rapidan, where the infantry had retired behind a cavalry screen. All of the commands in the mounted service were to be evaluated again, and possibly reorganized. As if Charles gave a damn.
The sky, suffused with deep orange as the day waned, had a forlorn quality. Autumnal. Cantering beside the young scout, Charles noticed that the turkey feather in Jim’s hat band, bent over behind him a few minutes ago, now bent forward, toward the road in
front of them.
Jim noticed his companion’s stare. “What’s wrong, Charlie?”
“The wind’s changed.”
So it had, sharp and cold now, from the northwest. Too chilly for summer. Jim waited for further explanation, but none came. He scratched his stubbly beard. Strange man, Charlie. Brave as the devil. But mighty unhappy these days.
Buffeted by the stiff north wind that flattened the grasses of the fields and creaked the trees, they rode on through the orange evening.
Book Five
The Butcher’s Bill
I cannot describe the change nor do I know when it took place, yet I know that there is a change for I look on the carcass of a man now with pretty much such feeling as I would were it a horse or hog.
A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER, 1862
89
A MILD WINTER SOFTENED Virginia’s tortured look. Softened but could not erase it. Too many fields lay stripped. Too many trees showed raw circles where limbs had been cut. Too many roads had hoof craters and wheel canyons. Too many farms had walls pitted by musket balls, windows knocked out, a fresh grave that revealed itself like a sugared loaf whenever a light snow fell.
The snow melted and the ditches filled, creating freakish sights. The head of a dead horse appeared to float on tranquil water, resembling some salvered delicacy offered at a medieval feast. The winter soil grew strange crops: shell casings; splintered axles and wheels with spokes missing; thrown-away suits of long underwear patched beyond wearing; broken brown bottles; paper scraps thick as a fall of flower petals.
Haymows were empty. Livestock pens were empty. Larders were empty. So were chairs once occupied by uncles and brothers, fathers and sons.
Three years of asking too much of the earth had inevitably marked it. The fields and glens, the creeks and ponds, the hillsides and blue mountain summits exhaled thin mist in the pale sunshine. It was the breath of a sick land.
In the cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia, Charles had become a minor legend. His courage and concern for others made him something more than other men, his lack of ambition something less. It was said, behind his back, that the war had done things to his head.
He developed odd habits. He spent long hours with his gray gelding, currycombing and brushing him. He was sometimes seen holding lengthy conversations with the animal. Every once in a while during the winter he galloped off to see a girl near Fredericksburg, but always returned in a state of moody silence. He roamed the camps regularly in search of yellow-backed Beadle novels to buy or borrow. He read only one kind, Jim Pickles noticed—those dealing with the Western plains and the scouts and trappers who inhabited them.
“How long was you in that part of the country?” Jim asked over their cook fire on a night in January. They were dining on cush they had prepared themselves from hoarded bacon grease and scraps of leftover beef that they stewed in a little water with week-old corn bread crumbled into it. The dish was a favorite in the army and a lot tastier than the purpling meat and field peas comprising the regular ration;
“Long enough to fall in love with it.” Charles used his bowie to lift stew to his mouth. Jim had no implements except a stick and could get none from army sources; the two scouts had taken a canteen off a dead Yankee and split it into a plate for each of them.
After another bite, Charles added, “I’d go back out there tomorrow if we didn’t have to fight.”
Startled, Jim said, “What about Miss A’gusta?”
“Yes, there’s that, too,” Charles said. He stared into the fire for a while.
From the darkness, another of the scouts called, “Charlie? I think your gray’s loose.”
He leaped up, spilling his food. He went charging through leafless underbrush in the direction indicated by the other man. Sure enough, he came on his horse frantically chewing a triangle of gray cloth; Sport had snapped his tether.
Angrily, Charles yanked the blanket out of Sport’s mouth. The gray whinnied, peeled back his lips, and nipped at Charles’s hand. “Goddamn it, Sport, what’s wrong with you?” Of course he knew. There was no longer any forage; the horses were wild with hunger.
As he led Sport back to the customary boards and straw of winter—having publicly threatened to put bullets into the head of anybody who even thought of stealing them—he saw by the light of another fire that the gray’s ribs showed regular as rail ties.
He swore again, filthy oaths. He had known for weeks that Sport was losing weight. He guessed the gray was down thirty or forty pounds from his weight at the time of purchase. The wasting away filled Charles with pain and rage, as did, to a lesser degree, the fate of other animals in the cavalry. Many were dying. Why not? The cause was dying, too. Almost every day, Hampton dispatched mounted parties to hunt for fodder, but they seldom found any. Both sides had picked the state clean.
Charles’s malaise came to the attention of Hampton, promoted to major general and given a division in the latest reorganization. Fitz Lee had received a similar promotion and the other division. One night Hampton invited Charles to his tent to dine on camp beef, which neither of them would touch.
By the deep gold light of lanterns, Wade Hampton still looked fit, remarkable in view of the severity of the wounds from which he had recovered. His beard, thick and curling, had grown even longer than Charles’s, and he waxed his mustaches to points. Yet Charles saw lines that hadn’t been there when Hampton raised the legion. A new solemnity draped the general like a mantle.
They gossiped a while. About the unpopularity of Bragg, rewarded for his Western failures by an appointment as military adviser to the President. About the resulting demands from certain newspapers that Mr. Davis be removed in favor of a military dictator; Lee was mentioned. About reports that big John Hood had been ingratiating himself with Davis by frequently going horseback riding with him in Richmond.
Charles had the feeling all this was preparation for something else. He was right.
“I want to say something to you which I know you’ve heard before, from many others, including your friend Fitz.”
Wary, Charles waited. Hampton swirled a little remaining whiskey in his tin cup while his black orderly cleared away battered tin plates and bent forks. “You should be nothing less than a brigadier, Charles. You have the experience. The ability—”
“But not the desire, sir.” Why not tell the truth? He was sick of keeping it to himself, and if he could trust anyone to understand, he could trust the general. “I’m coming to detest this war.”
Not a trace of reproof; only a brief sigh. “No one wants peace more than I. Why, I wouldn’t trade the joys of it for all the military glories of Bonaparte”—points of lantern light showed in his solemn eyes—“but we mustn’t deceive ourselves as some do.
Vice President Stephens and many others in the government believe peace will simply mean a cessation of the war. It won’t. We have come too far. Too much blood has flowed. We’ll be fighting as hard afterward, in a different way, as we are fighting right now.”
The thought hadn’t occurred to Charles. He examined it a few seconds, finding it both realistic and depressing. His response was a shrug, and the playing of a theme only Jim Pickles had thus far heard.
“Then maybe I’ll scoot for Texas and find myself a cabin and a patch of farmland.”
“I would hope not. The South will need men of strength and sense to look after her interests. In this life, we are called to use our talents responsibly.”
Quietly said, it still stung, as Hampton had intended. Having gotten a refusal and answered it, the general let his remarks simmer. He stretched out his powerful booted legs and smiled in the way that won him so many friends; even Stuart had begun to thaw toward him, although everyone knew Fitz Lee would be forever jealous and resentful of the older general.
“Ah, but I suppose we won’t have to confront peace for a long time yet,” said Hampton presently. “And I do believe we shall win.”
Charles kept his face in repose; such l
ies were required of those belonging to the senior staff. Only occasionally did such men let down. A while back, Charles and Tom Rosser—younger, now a brigadier—had discussed the war over whiskey. After one round too many, the pugnacious Texan opened up and said he saw but one feasible strategy left for the South now: hold Atlanta and hold Richmond and hope to hell that George McClellan ran in the Northern election in the autumn and whipped Old Abe. Then a fair peace could be negotiated.
Hampton, however, continued his discussion of winning. Giving his great brown beard a stroke or two, he mused, “You will go west when we’ve done it, you say. How does that young lady in Fredericksburg feel about your plans? I have heard your affair of the heart is quite serious.”
Somehow, the teasing nettled Charles. “Oh, no, sir. Times like these, I can barely look after my horse. I’ve got no business trying to look after a woman, too.”
Soon they said good night, Hampton shaking his hand warmly, then accepting his salute and again urging him to think about commanding a brigade. Charles promised he would, but it was only politeness.
Blowing out breath plumes in the dark, he trudged through the eternal mud to see Sport. Although he had spoken about Gus in a joking way, he had said what he believed. Ab and Brandy Station had started the thought process, which had reached a definite conclusion. He loved Gus more than he had ever loved another human being. But he needed to break it off, for both their sakes.
Charles wasn’t the only member of his family with a growing sense that the death of the Confederacy was inevitable. Cooper believed it, though he never said it aloud, not even to Judith.