Homeland

by Barbara Hambly

  All my affectionate wishes and prayers to your sister, who must be coming close to her own confinement.

  NIGHT

  I feel as if I had gone through the mangle, not the sheets. Yes, I long to see whatever drawings you care to send, Susie. Please send them, if you can. You are quite right, that no one in America paints like the Europeans—I adore Mrs. Acklen’s little dog. I will not tell you of the little portfolio I’ve started of your sketches, lest you become conceited, but your sketches put me instantly at your side. If I cannot speak to you, I can see what you are seeing, and I treasure that.

  Your friend,

  Cora

  Cora Poole, Southeast Harbor

  Deer Isle, Maine

  To

  Susanna Ashford, Nashville Female

  Academy

  Nashville, Tennessee

  THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1862

  Dearest Susanna,

  Is this how foxes feel, when hunters stop their burrows so that the wretched creatures can find no refuge? Though there can be little comparison, between the inconvenience of being whispered about by one’s childhood friends as a potential traitor, and the frightening presence of armed and drunken men around one’s house. I know your father and your brother Regal can be counted upon to keep Regal’s men on their own side of what is proper, at least insofar as you young ladies are concerned, though I consider it criminally irresponsible, to say the least, not to speak out for his servants. I am so glad to hear you will be returning to Nashville soon!

  At least my cousin Isaiah has come to replace our hired man. He and Oliver—

  [letter discarded—not sent]

  Cora Poole, Southeast Harbor

  Deer Isle, Maine

  To

  Susanna Ashford, Nashville Female

  Academy

  Nashville, Tennessee

  TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1862

  Dearest,

  Are you all right? The most awful rumors have swept the island that Nashville is being evacuated ahead of Federal invasion and bombardment. It will be next week before we will even have a newspaper story, if then. Please, please, write to me, to let me know where you are, and that all is well.

  Cora

  Susanna Ashford, Nashville Female

  Academy

  Nashville, Tennessee

  To

  Cora Poole, Southeast Harbor

  Deer Isle, Maine

  THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1862

  Dearest Friend,

  Rec’d your letter today—so little time to write! I have to hide your letters now, and mine to you.

  My hand and arm are so cramped it’s hard to hold a pen. The whole town is on tiptoe after the Yankee attack on the forts upriver. Mrs. Elliott is on one of the hospital committees, and has the whole staff of the Academy and all the girls washing bandages. I didn’t do badly, but the town girls who’ve never seen anything bigger than a chicken killed got pretty sick. It isn’t just blood, the way it is with a deer or a pig.

  FRIDAY, FEB. 14

  Terrible news coming down the river all day. Last night I got Mr. Cameron to escort me (capped and trousered as before) to the landing, to see the wounded from Fort Donelson brought ashore. At home I used to sketch pigs when they were hung to bleed out after slaughter. I didn’t think this would be so different. If I am to be an artist—a true artist—I have to know. But it is different, and horrible, Cora! I didn’t faint, but Mr. Cameron said, “I shouldn’t have brought you.” Still, I’m glad I know.

  LATER. EVENING

  More bandages. Raining on and off all day. Rumors everywhere, and no way of knowing which are true. People in the street just yell them up at the windows. Half the girls are weeping, and nobody is selling wood to do the washing with. I went to the attic to look for a basket for clean bandages and found Nora Vandyke up there, hiding. She called me all sorts of names and pulled my hair, but I got her downstairs somehow and put her right to work. If I can do it, she can. She’s announced she’d rather kill herself than be “taken” by the Yankees and now about fifteen of the girls are all in a suicide pact.

  SATURDAY, FEB. 15

  Word just came down the river. The Yankees have been thrown back. Mrs. Polk is giving a ball tonight. Just about every house along the respectable end of Spring Street is illuminated in honor of the victory. Mr. Cameron says, you can drink yourself unconscious on champagne just walking three blocks. Nora’s bragging how she knew all along the Yankees would retreat. Did I tell you she is engaged to three Captains and a Major?

  In an hour Mrs. E is taking us up to the State House to hear the speeches of victory. Everyone is talking about the Battle of Marathon. All I can think about is Payne, and poor Gaius—who was killed with Jackson’s men so near Winchester, Virginia, last month—and all those men they were bringing ashore yesterday. Is it over? Will Tom be able to be there when Julia’s baby is born? Will Emory go back to Boston with you? Or will he be prosecuted as a traitor? Will Justin be able to come back, after all? And if so, what then? I thought I’d be glad when one side or the other won, but I just feel hollow, Cora, as if there’s a hole blown in me and the wind’s coming through.

  TUESDAY, FEB. 18

  BAYBERRY RUN

  I just re-read what I wrote to you last week. It’s as if it were somebody else writing about another world!

  Late Saturday night, just hours after we got back from listening to the speeches of victory, word came that the Confederate Army was pulling out of Nashville and retreating south.

  As soon as it was light I ran to the Russells’ house. I found Henriette’s mother and sisters packing to leave. They practically shoved Julia into my arms, to get rid of her. All Mr. Russell’s money was invested in cotton and tobacco, and they’ve been living on almost nothing for months, so I can’t really blame them for not wanting another mouth to feed. Julia just about swooned at the thought of setting foot outside the house, much less taking a train, in her “delicate” condition. But I asked her, who did she want to be seen by? Strangers in the depot when she’s completely covered with a cloak? Or whoever was going to pull us out of the smoking rubble of the house if the Yankees did shell the town? There were mobs in the street, either trying to get to the depot and on a train, or taking carriages to loot the Army warehouses. Men and women—white and black—in rough, dirty clothes, were just walking around the streets watching to see who was loading up to abandon their houses: looters, waiting for people to flee. Of course the entire city police force joined the Army as it was pulling out. What a horrible feeling, knowing that if someone were to decide to kill Julia and me for our earbobs, nobody would stop running long enough to do anything about it!

  Dr. Elliott somehow got the whole Academy down to the depot together. Half the girls were in hysterics the whole way. People were fighting to get tickets and cramming onto anything that moved. We got onto a train at about sunset, and reached Chattanooga just before nine. The self-respecting heroine of any novel would have gone into labor on the train, but for a wonder Julia didn’t. In Chattanooga Mr. Cameron took us all to a hotel (one room, and glad to get that), where he’ll stay with the girls and Mrs. Elliott until Dr. Elliott gets word to everybody’s parents. But Julia and I went back to the depot first thing in the morning. After a lot of waiting, we got a train to Greeneville around noon.

  That was yesterday. Julia and I didn’t have a nickel between us when we arrived, but Charley Johnson was kind enough to drive us out to Bayberry Run.

  Pa still isn’t back from Richmond (not that he’s written us, or anything like that) and most of the darkies have run off, and I can’t blame them. The militia is still camped around the barn, but about thirty of them have now moved into our house. Regal wasn’t here to order out the ones camped in our bedroom. Captain McCorkle (he wears spectacles and has an Adam’s apple the size of a lime) got them to move finally, but the whole bedroom stinks—tobacco-spit, cigars, and plain dirtiness, a smell worse than any animal—and the bed and blankets are crawling w
ith bedbugs and lice. So is the chair—I tried sleeping in that. The window is broken, so we needed to wrap up in the one remaining blanket, and we wouldn’t have had that if Captain McCorkle hadn’t been standing right there when the men got out of the room. We hugged each other to keep warm, and Julia wept all night (in between both of us scratching). She has been begging me for the last half-hour while I’m writing this to go downstairs and get Mammy Iris to come up with hot water to wash, and milk for her, and to have Cook boil up water to wash all the bedding.

  Does she really think any of those women is still on the place?

  LATER

  Mammy Iris, Den, and a few others are still here!!! Cook ran off last week, after some of the men raped her and her daughter. Mammy looks at me like she hates me, Mammy who raised us all! The awful thing is I don’t blame her.

  LATER

  It’s almost too dark to write. I can hear the men downstairs, rough voices and things breaking. I don’t really think they’d do anything to me with Captain McC in the house, but going out to use the out-house is truly terrifying. Julia and I pushed the bed up against the door.

  WEDNESDAY, FEB. 19

  Hunted the house top to bottom, for anything that can be sold. Hard to do that, with the men hanging around, chewing and smoking and playing cards. Pa had a couple of trunks full of Confederate bonds in the attic, but that’s now a kind of dormitory. I didn’t even dare go up there. Anyway, Captain McC says there’s nothing left of value up there now.

  EVENING

  Got Captain McC to lend me “a couple of the boys” to ride into Greeneville, to see if there’s a doctor there, and to see if anyone knows anything about the bank. Of course Regal’s still gone, and there’s no word from Pa. On the way into town, the Corporal in charge of my bodyguard scolded me about being brought to the plantation by Charley Johnson, a traitor from a family of traitors who all deserve hanging. “I hear tell you been sparkin’ some Lincolnite hill-billy yourself,” and gave me a look that made me think, I’m out in the middle of the woods with four men I’ve never met before in my life. I told the Corporal that I didn’t think gentlemen discussed ladies behind their backs, and he snapped back, “They don’t. But soldiers fighting to defend their country from invaders got the right to discuss if a she-traitor is likely to stab them from behind.”

  The bank in town was shuttered tight, and nobody knew anything about a doctor. Under pretext of looking for one, I got away from my bodyguard for an hour, and sneaked to the Johnson house, which is horribly broken-down now, with awful things written on it. Mrs. Johnson was thinner even than she was last spring, tho’ she claims (to me) to be malingering so the local Confederate troops won’t confiscate the house. I guess an Oath of Loyalty doesn’t count if everybody “knows” you’re a traitor in your heart. She asked very kindly after you, and offered Julia and myself sanctuary. I was hard put to find a way to say, Oh, no, thank you, we couldn’t inconvenience you (as one is supposed to at least once for good manners) that wouldn’t jeopardize the offer. She laughed at my expression and said we’d be doing her a favor, because the Confederacy would think twice about turning out the daughters of the most prominent Secesh in the county.

  Well, I might just as well have saved myself the trouble of being polite. Because of course, Julia won’t hear of it! She clung to the bedpost like she believed I’d drag her bodily out of the room, and said she refuses to have anything to do with a Yankee-loving traitor and her drunkard son (preferring I suppose the sober paragons of gentility in the next bedroom). “This is my home, Susie! This is our home! Does that mean nothing to you?”

  This sounds terrible to say, but no, it doesn’t. I try to joke about it, but I feel like I’m in a nightmare. I can’t desert her—I could never face Pa, or Tom, or Emory, or myself in the mirror, if anything happened to Julia or her baby … But, Cora, I’m so scared I don’t know what to do.

  If you get this—when you get this—you’ll know that everything turned out all right. But right now, tonight, it’s dark, and I hear the men getting drunk again.

  THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20

  GREENEVILLE

  EVENING

  Lincolnites attacked our home last night. They set fire to the tobacco-barn and the militia camp. I saw one man shot off his horse and dragged away screaming at a gallop with his foot caught in the stirrup-leather. I didn’t see more because a bullet smashed the window beside me, and Julia went into hysterics. The men burst into the room, cursing us because we’d dragged the bed in front of the door again before going to sleep, and broke out the rest of the window to shoot at the riders down below. One of them yelled “Shut that bitch up!” and Julia screamed again, and I thought, Oh, my God, she’s going into labor! But she wouldn’t let go of me to let me look for a candle, and away from the firelight at the window it was too dark to see anything, and she kept screaming, “Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me!” It was Bedlam, Cora!

  Even when the men ran out, and the barn-fire died down, she wouldn’t let me go. It sounds gruesome, but I felt around her in the bed, and there didn’t seem to be any blood. The shooting got less outside, and she finally fell asleep. I couldn’t find the candle, and wasn’t about to go out of the room, so I went to the shattered window. Standing there on the shards of glass, I saw the remains of our barn and the soldiers’ encampment, glowing red-gold against the black night and the black trees. I guess that’s what the Greek camp outside Troy looked like when Hector drove the Greeks back to their ships. Only when first light came and I could see Julia hadn’t miscarried, could I breathe again. Outside, by the cut-off tree-stumps, six corpses were lined up on the ground.

  I got dressed, and went downstairs and told Captain McCorkle in my most commanding tone that Julia and I would need an Army wagon, to take us into Eliza Johnson’s in town.

  And that’s where we are, Cora. I don’t know how long we’ll be able to stay here, or what Pa will do with us when he gets back from Richmond, but at least we’re safe and we’ve both finally had baths. I wasn’t about to get undressed back at Bayberry even if we could have gotten water heated. By the time you get this, goodness knows where we’ll be. Mrs. Johnson tells me that Nathan Forrest managed to get his men away from the Federals, and as of two days ago was holding Nashville. But nobody really knows what’s happening.

  I’m going to try to write to Dr. Elliott at the Academy, and to Mr. Cameron. I have no idea where Henriette is with her family and the children. I know they have family in Missouri, but what’s going on there sounds even more frightening than what we’ve been through this week! I feel as if Julia and I have been washed overboard in some huge tempest, and are out in the middle of the ocean, clinging onto a plank. But right for now, we do have that plank, and from here at least there are people who can get letters across into Kentucky, and mail them to you. I keep your letters near me and re-read your last letter, and it’s like looking through a window. Just because the room I’m in is pitch dark doesn’t mean the sun has been snuffed out. I truly wish I was with you in your room with Peggie and Ollie, huddled under the covers listening to you read A Christmas Carol—ox that I could go to one of those Daughters of the Union meetings and pull your friend Elinor’s hair for you!

  Your friend,

  Susanna the She-Traitor

  Cora Poole, Southeast Harbor

  Deer Isle, Maine

  To

  Susanna Ashford,

  c/o Mrs. Eliza Johnson

  Greeneville, Tennessee

  TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1862

  My Dear Friend,

  A letter from you—though of course it contains not one word of where you are now!

  Weeks before I came around the corner of the station house to find you in Justin Poole’s arms, I was aware of his love for you. Yet I had heard the dreadful stories of him, not from gossip or rumor, but from his own son, whom he neglected and suffered to grow up like a Red Indian in the woods. I know not what to say or advise. I trust your good sense, dearest Susie, yet I kno
w how love intoxicates. It surely was never possible for me to think clearly, when I was in Emory’s arms.

  Only remember that you do not have to decide anything now. You have no power over what will befall Justin, before you meet him again, nor over what will befall you. Use wisely the time that God has taken pains to interpose between you. Thus my advice is: to prepare yourself for the art academy in Philadelphia, when the opportunity shall present itself for you to go there. Such action will preclude no further decision—and the reverse cannot be said.

  And please forgive me if I sound coarse, or prudish, or as if I mistrust your virtue—but if this man should by any chance return before the War’s end, I beg of you, remember how easily a woman’s freedom can be lost! Much as I adore my Darling-Who-Is-To-Be-Born, I know that, whatever happens to Emory in this war, I must now take Her into account, in what I myself can choose to do, henceforth and forever.

  I should not say this. I should say instead, “All my hunger for a life of learning vanished like the dew when first I guessed I would be a mother.” But it hasn’t. Sometimes I feel that I have been cheated, tricked, led into a trap—a trap whose barbs are forged out of love, so that escaping would bring more pain than remaining in its meshes.

  Is this, then, what it is to be educated, to be trained like athletes for a race we will never be allowed to run? Beware of your heart, Susie!

  There! I have said what I think! It is snowing still, and the wind and the cold and the darkness in this house render me prey to morbid reflection.