SATURDAY, JULY 9
All day at Uncle M’s. The fleet goes out again tomorrow, sadly reduced, due to the sheer expense of cordage, and of salt to put down the catch, and mostly to the dearth of men. Many of the salt-sheds in Southeast Harbor are closed and empty. All about the island, one sees houses closed up, too, as women and children go to mainland families, only to survive. Mother was very bad with a headache this morning, so Peggie remained home with her and both babies, which made me deeply uneasy. I do not suspect her of wilfully harming a child, but often I have thought that, when left in charge of Mother, she doses her with laudanum simply so that she will sleep and not trouble her. There have been times when I was almost certain that she doses poor little Nollie, as well. He is fretful, and cries easily and for no reason, yet when I spoke of it to Peggie, she retorted, “So now you’re accusing me of poisoning my own child?” I do not know what to do. Yet, when I have taken Mercy to the gatherings which I would fain avoid, she is often teased and tormented by the other children, while I am left, by their elders, strictly alone.
Forgive me for troubling you with these mundane conflicts, like the dreary Iliads of snails. They are only the marks that I make on my prison-wall. It is good to know that you will know of them, and of me. A window, as you once wrote me, into the light. I have put a little oil on my chapped and aching hands, and will occupy myself with something frivolous and trivial, like Les Trois Mousquetaires, until Papa and Peggie return home.
Ever your friend,
Cora
P.S. I enclose Justin’s three letters. The latest is dated from early March; I have had none since then.
P.P.S. Shocking news of a Confederate raid towards Washington; yet I find it harder and harder to bring myself to read the papers at all. I only feel helpless, and very angry.
Susanna Ashford, Bayberry Run Plantation
Greene County, Tennessee
To
Cora Poole, Deer Isle, Maine
THURSDAY, JULY 28, 1864
Dearest Cora,
How I wish I could say, “How I wish you were here!” But I care too much for you to even think it. On the walk into town early this morning I thought it, with the countryside so silent and literally drenched in dew, and all the birds singing, and later, as I worked my way from patch to patch of my little gardens in the woods. (Someone had gotten to two of them—every ripe ear gone. I hope they choke?) These woods are still so beautiful, each leaf and flower perfect, and as I walked back to Bayberry (after picking and hiding almost a bushel of corn, hurrah!) the fireflies were just beginning to come out. Do you have fireflies in Maine? I wish I could show you how beautiful the summers here are. The summers that don’t include watching every second for bush-whackers, that is, and having the mountain picked so clean of game that you can’t even trap chipmunks, and being down to the last needle at home and no thread and not knowing what you’re going to find to trade for another one if it breaks. At least the rumble of evening thunder on the mountains is the same, and the scent of the rain.
It’s so good to hear from you. I read your letter sitting outside the store in town, and again in the woods after I’d tended a couple of my little gardens. Thank you for your comfort and concern. I could not tell Julia of what had happened, and I’m glad that you know, and understand. You have to take care of your Mother—and your Papa, it sounds like—as I must take care of Julia and Tom: such are our lives now. Tom was crippled at Vicksburg, and is able to do little. And Pa, of course, went off to Richmond ten months ago. In February Julia got a letter from him, saying that (a) he was going to be back soon with lots of money; (b) President Davis was going to send him on a Mission to France unless (c) he decided to go to Mexico and work out some marvelous trading arrangement which would make us all very rich. Or maybe we could all come to Richmond and keep house for him. Heaven only knows whether he’s there now, but my guess is, he’s not. Pa is always very good at avoiding real trouble. Some people make it more difficult than others, don’t they, for their children to obey the Fifth Commandment?
On the other hand, there’s no Commandment about strangling your sister-in-law and I’m afraid I’d do it, if I even suspected she was dosing my child with laudanum to keep her quiet. I will say this for Julia, much as she exasperates me, she is a wonderful mother, patient and kindly, and Tom—though the only painkiller he has is moonshine and he sometimes takes too much of that—looks after Tommy like a gentle grandmother.
Thank you, by the way, for news, of which we have almost none. I guess tho’ if the Confederate raiders had actually burned Washington, we would have heard.
SATURDAY, JULY 30
Evening again. The militia boys are all out “patrolling”—that is, riding around the countryside to steal whatever they can—so we did wash today: did I mention we use soapweed and chimney pink for lather? It works fairly well. I dry fruit, too, if I can get it—the peach orchard at the old Scanlon place produced handsomely, but it’s a long walk. There isn’t enough sugar to be had in Greene County to sweeten a cup of tea (if anybody had tea). (Or a cup.)
“The dreary little Iliads of snails …” I like that. I wonder what the War in Troy looked like to the camp slaves? You know there had to be hundreds. Probably pretty much like Don Quixote’s adventures looked to Sancho Panza. But I remember what you wrote to me a long time ago, about catastrophes not being like falling over a cliff. That they could be dealt with by climbing down, one hand-hold at a time. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought of that, and how it’s helped me.
I’m walking to town tomorrow, to see what I’ll need to trade for a pair of shoes. There’s a fellow who “buys” them from the Army. I’ll mail this then. (It costs me an egg, to send it.) Julia of course hasn’t been into town since the Federals arrived, and would rather go barefoot than wear “their” shoes.
You’ll always be worth an egg to me!
Your own,
Susie
P.S. The Northern newspapers for once told some truth: there were very few civilian casualties during the shelling of Vicksburg. Some people didn’t even move into caves, just lived in their houses, which took more nerve than I had. The seige didn’t last really long enough for people to starve to death, though we ate some fairly strange things.
Susanna Ashford, Bayberry Run Plantation
Greene County, Tennessee
To
Cora Poole
[not sent]
SATURDAY, JULY 30, 1864
NIGHT
Dearest Cora,
Three letters from Justin. He was at Vicksburg, as I’d thought. Everyone on the mountain always said Justin has second sight: Did he know I was there, too? Or Emory?
The house is deathly silent tonight, worse than any Gothic castle in any book. There’s no way of locking up the downstairs anymore—too many shutters have been broken, and the window-glass was all shot out over a year ago. So all we can do is shove the bed up against the bedroom door, and hope that if anybody prowls in, they’ll leave by morning. Julia and baby Adam are asleep, as I sit here trying to make out the paper by the flickery light of a stick of kindling, burning like a torch in a hole I drilled in the wall. Usually Lyle’s boys come in and camp when Emory and his troop are out “on patrol,” but tonight—thank God!—there are neither.
Julia is used to me writing to you like this—to the Pretend-Cora—but since I’ve started actually getting letters from you again, I’ve noticed she watches me carefully. I know she’s searched this room. She didn’t find your letters—the loose board is under the leg of the old armoire—but I now keep them up at Skull Cave, in one of the boxes with Justin’s books, except for your latest, which I carry with me, with my paper. More than once, she’s taken away my paper, innocently claiming the need to use it for kindling, or cleaning the kitchen pot. I don’t know what she’s said of you, or me, to Emory, but I also notice that she takes care never to let me be alone with him.
I manage to snare woodchucks and squirrels now and the
n, and the hens are laying well. I’ve seen wild hog tracks, but even if I shot one, I couldn’t butcher it out myself, and the men would take it, if I asked for help. I tell Julia I know of nests where stray hens sometimes lay out, but not that I’m keeping four of them up in Skull Cave. That way, I can trade the eggs if I need something (like postage to you), or, I’m sorry to say, eat them myself, when I go out to forage. I know if she knew of them, she’d only tell Emory, as she did with the pig, and they’d be gone. Trout are running well, too, and I never bring home all I spear. I dry one or two in the woods, and hide them. We’ll make it through the winter somehow. I’m glad you get to keep all your corn.
Love,
Susie
P.S. They said in town today that Lucas Reynolds was shot as he rode back from Knoxville, because of his sons being in the Union Army.
Cora Poole, Deer Isle, Maine
To
Susanna Ashford, General Delivery
Greeneville, Tennessee
TUESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1864
Dearest Susanna,
Thank you for your letter. Simple words, to embody the peace I feel, at knowing that there is someone, with whom I can share my heart. Papa tries so very hard to relieve me of some of the burden of looking after Mother, but he searches so desperately for crumbs of evidence that she is still as she was—or even that she is getting better—that every hour is to him a source of pain. If my words to you about climbing down that cliff in the darkness were of help—though at the time I wrote them I don’t think either of us realized how deep that chasm is, or how appalling some of those tiny hand-holds—I come back, again and again, to the words you wrote me about your home: that you are reminded of that species of dream, where people around you insist that someone you know and love is indeed that person … only you know in your heart that they are not. I do not know which of my parents I pity more.
If there is any way to convey to Julia how deeply I feel for her situation, please do so. I only met Tom once, on the occasion of their wedding, but I liked him very much. How could I not, when I saw him and Emory together, shoving and joking like brothers? The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David … Do you know, whether Emory was at Vicksburg or not? Or whether he knows of Tom’s injury?
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17
An interruption, occasioned by the kettle boiling—one can make a fair substitute for tea or coffee by parching barley, and it has the advantage of not keeping one awake—which turned into an argument with Peggie about cleaning the bedroom china. I am teaching Miss Mercy to use these articles, and Peggie vehemently objects to their presence in the far corner of the summer kitchen. I suspect in my darker moments that this is because my nephew Nollie is slow, though only a few months younger than my Mercy, and has not the least concept of the matter. Or it may be that Peggie simply relieves her own unhappiness by picking holes in the conduct of others.
The summer kitchen is filled with tubs of laundry soaking, and the smell of lye. My hand smarts from a scald, but Mother, for once, is well enough to sit at the table, listening to Papa reading the Bible. The Book of Numbers—not, I would think, the most comforting portion of the Holy Writ, but it is the day for it, and Papa will not deviate from his schedule. Mrs. Greenlaw came to visit Mother—a rare instance, and I was careful to leave the house, until she was gone.
You ask, Are women citizens rather than subjects? I have noticed, in all the ferocious discussions under way now about giving the franchise to freed blacks, that Congressmen are neglecting half of that population—while half of the white population has for three years now managed farms and found food for their children, pretty much on their own, with nothing more than the satisfaction of having the Propaganda Societies praise them for duty well done. And some of us, not even that!
The Bible speaks often of the wailing of women and orphans in the wake of war, yet never does it recommend searching for ways to avoid war; even as it enjoins slaves to obey their masters, never decrying the evil of slavery itself. I trust that, being inspired by God, there is a good reason for this. Yet I find sharper food for thought in that portion of Vanity Fair, wherein it speaks of the Battle of Waterloo, and how each bold British hero left a trail of French widows, bereft for life in his wake.
I am so sorry, that to get this letter you will have to walk half the day, to town and back—and hide it under the floor-boards. I look forward to the day, when that will no longer be the case.
Love,
Cora
P.S. I will inquire of Aunt Hester about soapwort and chimney pink. They can’t be any worse than the execrable soap Peggie and I managed to make last fall—which, thank Heavens, is running low. I will bespeak Aunt Hester’s assistance this year!
Susanna Ashford, Bayberry Run Plantation
Greene County, Tennessee
To
Cora Poole, Deer Isle, Maine
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1864
Dear Cora,
Thank you for the wonderful, wonderful needles! And the fishhooks! What better birthday present could I ask? Except your letter itself!
If you ask me, Peggie is very lucky not to have the bedroom articles in question broken over her head.
I did not say—and I meant to—how sorry I was, to read that Peggie is now a widow. I know how deeply you cared for Oliver. I remember in one of your letters, you speak of your brother Brock being home on furlough, and I trust that he is still well?
And please, tell me, if there is anything I can do—at this distance with Secesh militiamen all over the property—is there anything I can do, to make your life easier, with your parents? It was so hard for me to lose Payne and Gaius, Henriette and her children, but (does this sound insane?) my memories of them are unclouded. I remember them as they truly were. I don’t pity you, but admire you, for your ability to keep cheerful—to make soap, and dry peaches, and comfort your Father, and teach Miss Mercy to use the bedroom china—under I think the most horrible conditions a human can endure. You have my deepest respect.
All the town was in a turmoil today, as Sunday night, the Confederate raider John H. Morgan was ambushed, shot, and killed. Despite the fact that there is a Federal camp close to Greeneville, Confederates are in and out of the town all the time. Gen’l Morgan was staying with the Williamses, who have one of the biggest houses in town (and have entertained plenty of Union officers, as well). He was shot, in dense fog, at the bottom of their garden, pretty much right in the center of town, and Julia is livid with rage, not remembering the number of Union men who have been ambushed, shot, killed, beaten to death, or hanged by Secesh partisans. The soldiers were saying, too, that Sherman has taken Atlanta.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8
No barley is grown in this part of the world (for reasons explained in the Geography lectures at the Nashville Female Academy, which I have forgotten). There’s a plant here called Revolutionary tea that makes a pretty fair tea—Mammy Iris used to tell us that it’s what people drank in the United States after the Boston Tea Party—and I’ve gathered that. I’m lucky in that Justin taught me about wild foods, because he was such a terrible miser he would sell almost the whole of his corn crop, and live on ramps and wild sweet potatoes! So even though Mrs. Gitting and the bush-whackers got most of what I’ve been raising in my woods gardens, I can still find food in this season, that they miss.
I will try to “read” Vanity Fair in my imagination again, (having now no access to the book) but so much happens, that I keep forgetting incidents. Others, like Becky tossing her preceptress’s treasured Dictionary out the window of the carriage, are not to be forgotten under any circumstances!!!! I’m glad you have Justin’s copy. I am consumed with guilt every time I raid his books for end-papers to write to you. This letter comes to you care of The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.
Please give all my love to your poor Papa, and tell him that I remember him—and your Mother—in my prayers.
Love,
Susanna
Susanna Ashford, B
ayberry Run Plantation
Greene County, Tennessee
To
Cora Poole
[not sent]
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1864
NIGHT
Dear Cora,
Thank you, thank you for the needles, and the fish-hooks—and I am sorry, that I mentioned our needs here: I won’t do so again. I feel such shame, that I sounded like I was begging—and I wasn’t!—that I want to send them back, but I can’t. Julia talks as if everyone in the North is eating roast beef and ice-cream every day, and between courses asking themselves, “Shall we send food supplies to poor starving Southerners? No, let’s feed them to our dogs.” It doesn’t sound as if you’re teaching this summer—how could you, with your Mother to care for, completely aside from being a Damned Copperhead? And goodness knows what else Elinor is saying about you, and to whom.
I hate hunger. I hate war. And I hate Lyle Gilkerson.
And, I hate whoever it was, who went in and took all the corn from my gardens—all but one of them!—that I’d hoed and weeded and walked ten miles a day to care for, since March. When I came on that last one, after walking the whole circuit of them and finding each one cleaned out, I sat down on a log and cried, as I haven’t cried in a long time. Whoever it is, they know the potatoes are there, and unless I stand guard over them, they’ll come and get them, too, unless I dig them up before they’re big.
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