Also by Barbara Hambly
PATRIOT HEARTS
THE EMANCIPATOR’S WIFE
A FREE MAN OF COLOR
FEVER SEASON
GRAVEYARD DUST
SOLD DOWN THE RIVER
DIE UPON A KISS
WET GRAVE
DAYS OF THE DEAD
DEAD WATER
For Victoria
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks are owed to my dear friend and advisor on nineteenth-century housekeeping, Victoria Ridenour; to the staff and guides of the Travelers’ Rest, Cragfont, and Wynnewood Plantations, for their friendly helpfulness; to guide Dick Toll at the Andrew Johnson Homestead and to Daniel Luther at the Dickson/Williams House, both in Greeneville, Tennessee; to Connie Wiberg of the Deer Isle-Stonington Historical Society; to Gene Larson; and especially to my editor, Kate Miciak, for her patience and vision in shaping this book to be what it is.
Susanna Ashford, Bayberry Run Plantation
Greene County, Tennessee
To
Mrs. Cora Poole, Blossom Street
Boston, Massachusetts
THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 1861
Dear Mrs. Poole,
Please, I beg you, tell no one what you saw.
You said it was nothing, and I pray that’s the truth. I wish there had been time to speak to you before you got on the train. I will always be so grateful to you for helping me as you did, and did not dare imperil your situation by even a day’s delay. But, you being Emory’s bride, I know you’ve heard the stories.
[I’m afraid—crossed out.]
Please forget.
I enclose this in a package of the books Emory’s father says he is sending you. I hope that it reaches you in safety and that you enjoy the books. I am killed with envy that you’re getting his copy of The Hunchback of Notre Dame!
You are the only person here—the only person I’ve ever met, really—who has truly and disinterestedly acted as my friend. I don’t want what happened to destroy that. Please tell me it’s really all right.
Your friend,
Susanna Ashford
P.S. Enclosed is a sketch of us going to Nashville.
Mrs. Cora Poole, Blossom Street
Boston, Massachusetts
To
Miss Susanna Ashford, Bayberry Run
Plantation
Greene County, Tennessee
MONDAY, MAY 6, 1861
Dear Susanna,
Did we not agree, when I escorted you down to Nashville in March that we were to be Cora and Susanna? So far as I am concerned, that has not changed. Indeed, after eight whole weeks of matrimony I still find the thought of being Mrs. Anything unsettling. Our Lord said, “Let your Yea be Yea, and your Nay be Nay,” and when I told you, “It’s nothing,” I meant it. I may be a “mealymouthed Abolitionist bluestocking,” as your Aunt Sally so tactfully put it at that frightful tea-party, but having grown up in an atmosphere poisoned by gossip, I have no wish to either spread it, or credit it. Be reassured, I will keep the thing I saw to myself. Yet I cannot pretend that I am not profoundly disturbed by it, and more than a little concerned for your safety.
Your letter arrived Saturday. The books that accompanied it were consigned to the attic, for I do not read novels.
When I wrote my letters of thanks to my kind hostess for the tea-party, I felt I should write one to you, as well. Mrs. Johnson and your sister-in-law offered warm Southern hospitality, but in you I sensed actual friendship. Thank you for it, from the bottom of my heart. To excuse my delay in responding I plead the exigencies of setting up housekeeping for the first time: sewing curtains, learning which farmers in the market can be trusted not to water their milk, setting up account-books with grocer, butcher, and the man who delivers the coal, and finding a servant-girl who is honest. Back on Deer Isle, everyone knows the girls who “help” and can complain of them to their mothers if they misbehave. Here, most prospective “helpers” are immigrant Irish or German girls, and their mothers speak little or no English.
I trust our efforts in Nashville have borne fruit, and your admission to the Academy is secured? I know you were apprehensive. Yet I cannot see how your father would object to your hope of attending the Academy, much less of going on to advanced training in Art. Were you your father’s son, rather than a daughter, there would be no question of keeping you from the technical training that shapes ability into excellence. One look at your sketchbook convinced me how extraordinary your talent is.
Forgive me if I write too warmly. My own father took great care, and suffered no small amount of criticism, that I should have an education equal to my brother’s, and it is a matter very close to my heart. Please let me know, as soon as you hear.
And thank you, for your concern not to delay our departure. Happily, our train was not stopped by the militia bands one hears of. I trust that all remains quiet in your section?
Please extend my best wishes to Mrs. Johnson when next you see her, and thank her again for her hospitality.
Ever your friend,
Cora Poole
[N.B. April 12-14, 1861, Fort Sumter was shelled by
Confederates and taken.]
Susanna Ashford, Bayberry Run Plantation
Greene County, Tennessee
To
Mrs. Cora Poole, Blossom Street
Boston, Massachussets
MONDAY, MAY 20, 1861
Dear Cora,
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I still don’t know what to door even what to think—about what happened at the depot.
[I can’t let—crossed out]
I bless you for your silence.
There have been housekeeping exigencies here, too, largely having to do with getting the tobacco seedlings transplanted. We have three hundred acres in tobacco, and about half again as much in corn, and my oldest brother, who oversees the day-to-day work of our plantation, leaves tomorrow to join the Army.
And thank you, more than I can say, for your words about going to the Academy. It’s so true: were I a boy there would be no question whether I should go to the art academy in Philadelphia, even if it is in Enemy Territory now. There certainly wasn’t any about my brother Payne going to the Virginia Military Academy.
I’ve kept house here since my Evil Stepmother died when I was nine—Pa likes the way I manage the servants, and do the accounts. When Julia was getting ready for her wedding, and didn’t need me for a companion anymore, she was happy to tell Pa how nice it would be for me to go to the Academy. But now that Tom has gone into the Army, and Julia is home again, she doesn’t want me to leave, either. When Pa shakes his head and sighs, “Now, Babygirl, there isn’t a thing they teach at that Academy that you can’t learn right here at home,” I sneak up to my room and read and re-read your letter, to remind myself that he says so only because I’m a girl. That I have as much of a right to be an artist, as a boy would.
FRIDAY, MAY 24
I can’t imagine not reading novels. When I was little, I would tag after Payne when he’d go up to Crow Holler to go hunting with Emory, and I’d sit on the dog-trot and read Mr. Poole’s books. Some of them I couldn’t understand (a lot were in Latin and French and Greek), but sometimes Mr. Poole would come out of the woods and help me with them. Then at night I’d tell the stories back to Julia and Payne, or make up other stories about the characters. Even though I know you don’t read them, I’m glad to know Mr. Poole’s books are safe in your attic. The Secesh militia has been burning the houses of Unionists.
Didn’t you even read Uncle Tom’s Cabin?
Your friend,
Susanna
P.S. I enclose a sketch of your train being attacked by the Secesh militia. That’s Julia down in the lower corner, fainting into President Lincoln’s arms. (Does
he still have a beard?)
Mrs. Cora Poole, Blossom Street
Boston, Massachusetts
To
Miss Susanna Ashford, Bayberry Run
Plantation
Greene County, Tennessee
MONDAY, JUNE 3, 1861
Dear Susanna,
Had I known—as I now do, thanks to your sketch—that Confederate militia bands include elephant corps, chariots, and archers firing from balloons, I would certainly have been even more apprehensive than I was at the thought of them attacking our home-bound train. I will treasure your sketch, and take it to show the ladies of my Tuesday night Soldiers’ Aid Society. What on earth is a “dog-trot”?
“… there isn’t a thing they teach at that Academy”—fiddlesticks! I heard that from every one of our neighbors when I was preparing to go to the Female Seminary on the mainland: “What’s wrong with the schools right here on Deer Isle?” Your father doubtless thinks there are plenty of drawing-teachers in Greene County, as good as anything you’d find in Philadelphia, or Paris for that matter!
Of course I except Uncle Tom’s Cabin from the general category of novels, written as it was with a higher purpose than mere frivolity. Even my father excepted it, once I had lent my copy to him. This was after my school-friend Elinor thrust it upon me and declared she would never speak to me again, until I read it. And please forgive me my assumption that you would follow your family’s lead on the question of Secession—an assumption unworthy of Mrs. Wollstonecraft, and Lucretia Mott, and other champions of the right of women to think and speak after the promptings of their own hearts. Or do I mistake your words? I am extremely curious to know what you thought of the book? I wept and wept over it.
TUESDAY, JUNE 25
An interruption. Only days after the receipt of your letter, my mother wrote me from Deer Isle that my brother Oliver quite astonishingly announced his intention to wed, and Emory and I took the train back to Maine to attend the wedding. (Mother is fit to be tied.) It was good to see again the friends with whom I grew up, though my darling bossy Elinor could not attend, being great with her second child. Most of the men were out with the cod-fleet, and all my aunts and cousins and second-cousins deep engaged in the cultivation of their gardens.
The talk was of nothing but the War, and of the parade when the first of the Maine regiments marched south; of how we will “make the Southerners pay for their audacity.” Flags float from every public edifice and most private ones as well. Despite the joy of having milk and butter from our own cows, and good country vegetables—despite the beauty of the wildflowers in our woods and the pleasure of working in Mother’s garden again—I was conscious as never before of how primitive is the life on our island, and how narrow the focus of its dwellers, though they be people that I love. Nowhere did I hear even the suggestion that all Southerners might not be degenerate slave-holders.
I am profoundly glad to return to Boston. I sorely missed the variety of its newspapers, and the chance to read more than one view of a subject: here in Boston I read not only our own Transcript and Harper’s but several New York papers as well. Sorely, too, I missed the opportunity to hear lectures other than the Sunday sermon at church, or music beyond the level of the choir singing a hymn. How far I have come from that world!
We travelled up with my older brother Brock, his wife, and their children. Army recruiters were active on the island; fifteen of our men have enlisted, including four of my cousins, our hired man, Elinor’s husband Nathan, and my friend Deborah’s fiancé Charles. Most of those who signed up for the three-month enlistment were married men, many with children.
I send this in care of Eliza Johnson, who writes me that though postal service between the States of the Confederacy, and those of the Union, is now severed, men cross over the mountains in secret. I understand her husband made good his escape—surely the Confederates would not actually have hanged him? I pray this reaches you.
Emory bids me send his love to your beautiful sister.
Affectionately,
Cora
Susanna Ashford, Bayberry Run Plantation
Greene County, Tennessee
To
Mrs. Cora Poole, Blossom Street
Boston, Massachussets
MONDAY, AUGUST 5, 1861
Dear Cora,
Your letter at last! And, Saturday, the letter came that I am accepted at the Nashville Female Academy! Tho’ I don’t dare approach Pa on the subject until after the tobacco is harvested.
Men do indeed cross over the mountains all the time. Hundreds are fleeing to join the Union Army in Kentucky. Mr. Poole is widely rumored to be one of the “pilots” who guide them across, despite the guards the Confederate government has set on the border, to keep them in. I have instructed Mr. Poole to ask Pa for my hand a week before I show Pa the letter from the Academy: Pa would see me in Perdition, never mind a Female Academy “full of uppity Yankee women” (sorry), before he would risk an alliance with “that d—Lincolnite Poole.” If all goes well, I will leave for Nashville at the end of this month.
Thank you, thank you for your good wishes and prayers!
I read Uncle Tom’s Cabin because everyone was making such a fuss about it, but nobody I talked to had actually read it. I had to hide it behind the paneling in Payne’s bedroom. Much in it is so dreadfully inaccurate! My family has owned slaves all my life; I grew up playing in the quarters, and no black person I’ve ever met, slave or free, is as blindly trusting as poor old Uncle Tom. I know he’s supposed to be an honest Everyman, like Christian in The Pilgrim’s Progress, but to me he just seems like a simple-minded child who should know better. And I wanted to drown Little Eva in the rain-barrel.
I don’t think the book is really about black people at all. I think it’s about the way white people regard black people: how whites talk and think about slavery.
I can’t say I agree with the Abolitionists, because I honestly don’t believe men and women who’ve been slaves all their lives would stand a chance of making a decent living if they were just all turned loose one day, without any schooling or anything. But I’ve met too many of Pa’s friends who, if you let them put off emancipating their hands til they were “ready,” would find some good reason, and then another, why they weren’t “ready” until Kingdom Come. So I guess that’s why it’s so hard to come up with a good solution to the problem.
Whenever anybody talks about how reading novels is bad for girls, I think about Uncle Tom’s Cabin. No sermon in the world could have done what that novel did, in opening people’s eyes. (Pa takes that as proof that novel-reading is bad for girls.)
What do they say in Boston about the battle?* Pa and Regal talk as if the Federal Army was slaughtered to the last man at Manassas, except for the cowards who ran away.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 8
Henriette and Julia and I have been putting up blackberries—what a horror! Of course it’s the hottest week of the year, and only Cook and Mammy Iris to help us. All the rest of the house servants are out in the fields. Six of the main gang are down sick, which always happens at harvest. I think there’s got to be something in the tobacco sap that makes them sick, especially the children, but Pa says they’re just lazy. I will be very glad to be gone to Nashville. Since Manassas, everybody’s saying, “The War will be over by Christmas.” By next year, I should be able to apply to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in Philadelphia.
You forgot the other thing they always say to girls: “You’ll forget all about that Art nonsense when you have your own darling little babies to raise.” Except nobody has ever expected me to get married. Why would they, with a nose like mine? I was just supposed to stay home and be Julia’s companion.
Enclosed is a sketch of Mr. Poole’s house at Crow Holler. The south side of the cabin has been nailed up shut as long as I can remember. That’s me when I was five years old, sitting reading on the dog-trot, which as you see is that breezeway between the two halves of a cabin.
Your
friend,
Susanna
*[N.B. The Battle of Bull Run/Manassas Junction was fought Sunday, July 21, 1861.]
Susanna Ashford, Nashville Female
Academy
Nashville, Tennessee
To
Mrs. Cora Poole, Blossom Street
Boston, Massachussets
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1861
Dearest Cora,
Though I have had no letter from you, I must write. Truly, no one else could understand how happy I am! Not even, strangely, the other girls here at the Academy; I think I’m the only one who actually wants to be here. You are the only other person I have met who has ever spoken of the pleasure of learning, not to have “accomplishments” or to “make Papa proud,” but for “the life of the mind,” as you call it, in itself. Mr. Cameron, who teaches drawing, is a marvel. He studied with Rembrant Peale, and knows everyone in Nashville who has paintings from Europe for me to study and copy. Nobody in America paints as they do in Italy and France! Except the people who studied in Italy and France. Mr. Cameron is only the third person I’ve ever met—after you and Mr. Poole—who doesn’t think I’m crazy and unwomanly to want to paint pictures for my living. He knows a very wealthy lady here—a Mrs. Acklen—who has an entire art gallery! He has promised me to introduce us. I can hardly wait!
The Academy is a squat brick building with all manner of corridors and wings, and backs onto the Nashville and Chattanooga Railway tracks. From the windows we girls can see troops coming and going from the depot at all hours. The streets are full of soldiers and Army wagons, and everyone here, without exception, is a Secessionist: teachers, girls, Dr. and Mrs. Elliott—the kindest people imaginable—their daughters, most of the servants, and even Mr. Cameron. Sunday Mrs. E takes us for calls on all the “nice folks” in town, and the talk is of nothing but Yankee perfidy and the Justice of Our Cause. They say girls shouldn’t talk about politics, but that actually means, “Girls can talk about politics all they choose so long as they favor the Rebellion.” I smile, nod, and pretend I am a Spy in Enemy Territory. And think of you there in Boston, studiously reading your newspapers. They frown heavily on novel-reading here, too. Really, I’ve never understood what’s wrong with it.
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