Homeland

by Barbara Hambly

  Bless you, my brave girl. May the snows melt soon.

  Your own,

  Susie

  Susanna Ashford, Bayberry Run Plantation

  Greene County, Tennessee

  To

  Cora Poole

  [not sent]

  MONDAY, JANUARY 16, 1865

  Dear Cora,

  Thank you for your letter. Yes, we are indeed still here: sometimes Emory and his militia, sometimes militia and bush-whackers both, tho’ on such occasions there is generally more fighting over accusations of cowardice (but not a one of them ventured down to Nashville to assist the Confederates during the seige). It is as if there are two wars going on: one between the armies of the Union and those of the Confederacy, and one between the local Unionists, who hate the local Seceshes, not only for their politics, but because of the terrible things they have done to the families of the Unionists over the past four years, and vice-versa. And I fear that whatever Gen’ls Lee, Grant, and Sherman agree amongst themselves, the fighting here will still go on, until the land is …

  Is what? It is already a desolation, where men dare not work their fields for fear of being shot from the trees, and women and children sleep in the woods for fear of armed bands knocking on their doors in the night. It is only your letters, my dear Cora, that tell me the entire world is not what I see around me: hunger, treachery, callousness, and the eerie beauty of a world stripped of everything human.

  Yet, Julia clings to this house, and clings to me. She begs me with tears not to leave her—or gets into arguments with me, that leave me too exhausted to think or feel anything. Sometimes I think I hate her, almost as much as I hate Lyle. And how could I leave her, with a crippled husband, a starving two-year-old, and a fading infant, among men who might scatter like startled rats at any moment, leaving her to fend not only for herself, but for them all? And, where would I go? Those who flee, sleep in goods-boxes and makeshift tents around the railway stations in Kentucky and Nashville, hoping for the charity of the Union troops as they march through.

  FRIDAY, JANUARY 20

  A bad fall on my way up to the cave to feed the hens. Ice has made the rocks slippery, and it’s hard to keep from leaving tracks that others could follow. Not just to steal the hens, but because the men know I forage alone. Lyle has said that he would kill me, if I went with another man.

  Does he really think that the idea of any man—himself or another—is anything but nauseating to me?

  Last night Unionist guerillas attacked the house—more, I think, because they thought we had some food here than out of political convictions. I spent an enlivening three-quarters of an hour loading rifles in the pitch dark, for the night was moonless. Julia, of course, had hysterics, but in the end we were the victors. Not only did they not succeed in burning Bayberry, but a lucky shot got one of their horses. Meat for two days!

  Cora Poole, Deer Isle, Maine

  To

  Susanna Ashford, General Delivery

  Greeneville, Tennessee

  TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1865

  Dearest Susanna,

  You have forgotten one other thing that the Greeks did before Troy: they gossipped like schoolgirls! Homer, of course, calls it exhorting and advising. And you are quite right. I comb through The Iliad in vain for one Greek doing a simple kindness for another. You who are now living in an armed camp—is this the case with your militiamen? Did the Greeks before Troy spend much of their time drunk? Did they hold cockroach races?

  Last week Eliza Johnson wrote to me, saying that her husband’s recommendation would certainly procure me a post in the Patent Department or the War Office in Washington, as a clerk, at fifty dollars a month. I thanked her, and refused, for not only would the money not stretch to the hire of a woman to care for Mother, but know I can not leave Mother to Peggie’s care. Not even to Papa would I say this. She is in pain most of the time now, and when the cleaning is done, the cows fed and their straw raked out, and the stove-ashes put by for next autumn’s soap, I spend my days sewing or reading beside her bed while Mercy plays on the floor. The house is dark, the stillness such that on those few occasions when I do go into Southeast Harbor, or see anyone but Peggie and, occasionally, Papa, I feel startled and confused, like a prisoner suddenly thrust into light. Sometimes I think I would forget how to speak, but for the lively conversation of the Bennet Sisters, and the Dashwood Girls, and d’Artagnan and his friends. You are quite right, you know, about Uncle Tom’s Cabin: much as I still revere the book for what it has done for the slaves, I can not imagine anyone actually conversing in that fashion.

  And thank you, more than I can say, for your kind words concerning the wrong I did. Each night I pray that you are right: that God does forgive, as we are taught.

  FRIDAY, MARCH 3

  It is base of me to repine that I lack simple things—like camphor, and tea, and washing-soda—when you lack meat and bread!!! Forgive me my referring to such. I am tired much of the time these days, and it renders me cross and thoughtless.

  The island is still deep under snow, the harbors frozen. When he came in February, Papa crossed from the mainland on a sled. The newspapers are full of Sherman’s “exploits” in marching through South Carolina: cities burned, farms wantonly laid waste. In this harsh weather I think about the men out on the islands, still hiding from the draft, and wonder, how they are kept supplied now. Recruiters still comb the island, to no avail. The men who are hiding in the cave on Little Deer Isle have a system of spies among the children, so that they can work their farms and spend time with their families. I am a loyal daughter of the Union: I should not smile.

  Your friend,

  Cora the Spy

  P.S. Did you indeed write imaginary letters to me, when there was no way of sending them? I certainly did to you!

  Susanna Ashford, Bayberry Run Plantation

  Greene County, Tennessee

  To

  Cora Poole, Deer Isle, Maine

  SUNDAY, MARCH 26, 1865

  Dear Cora,

  Such a luxury, knowing I can write this letter and Mrs. V will see that it’s mailed! But, I now know that the only reason Hercules never helped with Spring Cleaning was because he chose to go to Hell and fight dreadful Cerberus instead—anything but a day like I spent yesterday! Mrs. V’s boarding-house in town has been shuttered up (without spruce-boughs, but the effect is much the same) all winter, and she has apparently been too occupied cooking and darning socks for the Army sutlers and government officers to even keep the stoves clean, or to mop up tobacco spit in the parlors. The weather is fine at last, and everything was turned out of doors: furniture, carpets, dishes, clothing, curtains. We scrubbed the walls and floors, the chimney-breasts and hearths, white-washed the ceilings, black-leaded the stoves, beat the carpets and in between all that boiled pillow-slips, sheets, and towels in the laundry-tubs. I told Julia none of this. Not only is Mrs. V a Yankee-loving traitor, but it’s for postage to send letters to you, not money to contribute to the militia! I felt excruciatingly guilty, coming home long after dark empty-handed, to her gentle sympathy. Mrs. V paid me a little, too, with which I bought powder and shot. Squirrels and woodchucks are awake again. I hid the ammunition in the old wash-house, with the gun.

  I look around at all the things we need—and at poor Julia, doing what Spring Cleaning she can here—and I feel so selfish and terrible, for having earned money and squandered it for postage.

  But, there was a letter from you!

  Yes, some of the militiamen do show kindness toward one another, even tenderness. It’s surprising, because the next minute the same man will be cursing fit to raise the hair on your head, or gouging and kicking someone who called him a name (“slighted his honor,” I think is how Homer would put it). They’ll guard each other’s things, or share blankets if it’s very cold, even with a man they don’t like. I keep away from them. Some are only boys, younger than I am, fifteen or sixteen: children, when the War began, with the brute, cold eyes of killers. I w
onder sometimes what will become of them?

  Not a night goes by, that I do not think of you, sitting in that hushed room at your Mother’s side.

  Yours,

  Susanna

  P.S. They say in the South, that it takes two Confederate soldiers to keep one draftee in camp. I can’t imagine it’s much different in the North.

  Lottie Barter, Town Landing, Isle au Haut

  To

  Cora Poole, Deer Isle

  SATURDAY, APRIL 8, 1865

  Dear Mrs. Poole, Maria Kydd send to tell me to tell you she heard to-day Will is dead in Virginia

  Yrs Lottie Barter

  Cora Poole, Deer Isle, Maine

  To

  Susanna Ashford, General Delivery

  Greeneville, Tennessee

  MONDAY, APRIL 10, 1865

  Dear Susanna,

  Sad news today, and my heart is heavy. Saturday I got the news that my friend Will Kydd is dead.

  TUESDAY, APRIL 11

  Your letter is a comfort. I have written to Will’s mother, asking if I can be of help, though I know not what help I can be.

  The work of the dairy has redoubled—Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Black have both calved, and we have now four goat-kids, as well, to the unending enchantment of Mercy and Nollie. Both children are of an age to find Paradise in the barn—and their own doom, unless watched constantly.

  THURSDAY, APRIL 13

  It begins to appear that spring has indeed come, though the nights are still cold and the roads little more than crevices of mire between the hills. Mother’s friends from the church will still sometimes call, for which I am profoundly glad, though I can tell by the way they look at me that they have heard—something. And of course, each and every one has something to say on the subject of laudanum. When I went in to take Mother her supper, she was asleep, and I will not wake her; Mercy and I shared corn-and-milk, and with luck I will—

  LATER

  Peggie came in with a newspaper that someone had brought across from the mainland this morning. General Lee has surrendered in Virginia to Grant.

  FRIDAY, APRIL 14

  Early morning—even before I usually go out to milk. I have slept little, thinking of what it means, that the War is done. Thinking—for the first time in years letting myself think—about Emory, and when he will be home. When he left—and I can still see him stepping out the door and walking away down Blossom Street—he did not even know that I was with child, and now Miss Mercy can sing about mocking-birds and di’mon’ rings, and “help” me with the milking. For four years now, I have carefully plucked out every small shoot of hope, lest it grow bitter thorns or poison fruit. Yet now I hope, wildly and unreasonably, like a child. Oh Susie, I have missed him so!

  Oliver’s Colonel wrote to Peggie, after Gettysburg, a kind letter, if brief. Poor man, nine-tenths of his regiment lay dead on the field. If Emory was killed, sometime over the course of the past four years, who would write to me? Peggie said, “Now I suppose you’ll welcome back your traitor husband, though he killed your brother.” How can I even lament her hatred, when it is she who was widowed?

  SATURDAY, APRIL 15

  I crossed to Isle au Haut, to see Will’s family. The man who took me over was one of those whom Will helped hide out on Kimball’s Island. When I came back the men at the Landing had a newspaper. It said, Abraham Lincoln was dead. One man was weeping. Another said, “Well, Old Abe had it coming, that’s for sure.” I have worked all afternoon—butter, scrubbing, baking for tomorrow (though like Christmas, Easter is regarded here with suspicion as “popish”), and sewing—and as I work the thought comes back to me, again and again, that he is dead. Why this terrible grief, for a man I never met? Yet as I write this, Susie, I weep as though my heart is broken.

  MONDAY, APRIL 17

  Dawn again. Black darkness and silence but for the ticking of the kitchen clock. Even Mercy still sleeps. Mother was very bad yesterday, and so I did not go to church with Papa and Peggie. I understand the service was one of profoundest thanksgiving and deepest mourning. Last night after I had put Mother to bed, I saw light burning still in the attic, and climbed to see Papa sitting up in his little cot. He said, “Brock will be home,” and our hands closed over one another’s in thankfulness. Though Brock was wounded slightly when New Orleans was taken, back in ‘62, and later ill with malaria, so far as we know he is safe. He wrote us from Virginia, where he is now stationed, in March, and Betsy has heard from him only two weeks ago. And yet I am forced to reflect that everything is only, “so far as we know.” There is in fact no safety in this world. War took Ollie, yet Mother is as surely lost to us, who never carried a musket in her life.

  Papa leaves for New Haven after breakfast. I will have him carry this to town. I pray now that your life, too, will be able to return to conditions of safety; that you won’t have to hide your food and your books; that your Pa will come back from wherever he has been, and sort things out at Bayberry. That you will at least know what is possible, and what can be done. Did the prisoners in the Bastille feel this way, when the walls were broken down?

  Please write to me as soon as you can, and tell me, all that is happening there with you.

  Much love,

  Cora

  Susanna Ashford, Bayberry Run Plantation

  Greene County, Tennessee

  To

  Cora Poole

  [not sent]

  FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 1865

  Dear Cora,

  Rumors are flying that Gen’l Lee has surrendered to Grant. As soon as I get my “patches” cleared in the woods for crops, I will walk into town to ask after this. There has been almost no forage for weeks, and I move warily in the woods, and dry the fish I catch in two or three different caves. Now that it is spring, it’s easier to catch grubs for the hens, and they begin to lay well. The rumor is also that several Lincolnites were killed over in Cocke County, for accepting the proposed plan of “Reconstruction.” The Seceshes vow they will kill anyone else, who does likewise.

  SUNDAY NIGHT, APRIL 23

  The rumor is true. Also that Richmond has fallen, and that Abraham Lincoln was killed. I remember writing to you from the Academy in Nashville, when everyone was saying that the Yankees had been driven back from Fort Donelson, and that this victory meant the end of the War. I remember how I felt then, strange and disappointed. But, Payne and Gaius were already dead. I think it’s been a long time since I felt anything. It’s as if I’m dead—and have been dead for months—and everyone has been too busy to notice.

  Susanna Ashford, Bayberry Run Plantation

  Greene County, Tennessee

  To

  Cora Poole, Deer Isle, Maine

  WEDNESDAY, MAY 10, 1865

  Dear Cora,

  So good to get your letter! It was worth the blisters and the burn on my hand, and scrubbing lakes of tobacco spit out of Mrs. V’s carpets, to know I can write this without worrying about how I’ll post it! We’ve had the news here—I had to walk into town one day to confirm it. Julia is still convinced that it is a lie, put about by traitors to “dishearten” loyal Confederates.

  I am more sorry than I can say, to hear of the death of your friend Will. There were times—it sounds silly and horrible to say this—that I was a little jealous of him, because he was able to see you every day. But tho’ I never lost my belief that the Union must be preserved (despite forty-seven days of Mr. Grant’s attentions at Vicksburg) I had a sneaking admiration for Will, for helping the men who evaded the draft. Like Mr. Poole, piloting men over the mountains. Is there anything I can do, or say, to help you with this? Anything I can give you, but my deepest sorrow and sympathy?

  As I said, I don’t even think Pa was in Richmond when it fell. Like a tom-cat, Pa likes a comfortable chair, and I suspect he left before Grant’s army closed in. Julia expects daily to hear from him. Each time I hint to her that we’d be safer in town—and with the Federals out hunting the militia, and the militia attacking the Lincolnites, it would be safe
r almost anywhere—Julia cries that Pa will soon be home, and I must be patient.

  What is happening here, is, I’m sorry to say, exactly what was happening a year ago at this time, [only—crossed out]. Every morning I hunt. I have five little garden-patches in the woods, where I hoe the new-sprouted corn, weed around the pumpkins, pick up every grub and insect I find for the hens. I wish they could eat the bedbugs at Bayberry: they’d be fat as observation-balloons and lay eggs the size of oranges! I check my trap-lines (usually empty, this time of year) and fishing-lines. (I bless your name as I unhook every fish from every hook!) Julia keeps our rooms swept, and mends clothing, and looks after Tom and Tommy. The militia forage, or get drunk, or play cards, or fight (each other, not Lincolnites or the Union Army or anything). At night I bring home all but one fish or two, and a couple of eggs (“I found them … darn hens are laying out some where … “) and chop stovewood for the next day.

  Well I remember how magic the barns were, to Payne and myself as children—much more ramshackle than yours in New England, I’m sure, with missing slats and holes in the walls you can see daylight through. I told Payne stories about the wars between the Woods-Fairies and the Barn-Fairies (I was secretly in love with the King of the Barn-Fairies), before I packed my heart up, bag and baggage, and moved to fifteenth-century Paris. You are right; it is a Paradise, and the thought that Miss Mercy might be pulling cows’ tails, and sticking her little hands into snakes’ holes and down the corners where the rats hide, and climbing up onto the ridgepole the way Payne and I did, raises the hair on my head. Put her in a room in the house and lock the door on her until she’s eighteen and knows better!