Savannah, or a Gift for Mr. Lincoln

by John Jakes

“You mean die? I saw plenty, every one of them cold as a wagon tire.”

  “Ohhh.” Hattie shuddered. “How did you get hurt? Tell me everything.”

  Legrand proceeded to do that, in quick sentences that tumbled one over another. On the night Fort McAllister fell, a Union shell had struck the outer wall of his fort, blown it to pieces, and hurled him backward off a ladder. He landed on his spine and the back of his head, saw a few colored lights, and when he sat up, he discovered a long thick dagger of wood from the rampart sticking out of his left thigh.

  “That’s when it started to hurt. I passed out for a while. They sent me home the next night.”

  “Walking?”

  “Yes. Wasn’t easy, either,” he said in a stoic way. He was the complete heroic veteran, grit personified. Excited, Hattie opened the front door.

  “Mama, Vee? Come see who’s back, safe and sound.”

  Minutes later, Legrand relaxed at the dinner table, basking in the adulation of three females and shooting rapid answers to questions from the two adults. Night had come; Hardee’s rumbling artillery reddened the windowpanes. Sara said, “You’ve confronted the enemy, Legrand. What’s your estimate of our chances of defeating Sherman?”

  “Zero. You’ll sooner catch a weasel asleep. We’re goners unless Hardee opens that pontoon bridge to civilians. There’s talk of it, but nothing for sure.” He consulted a tarnished pocket watch. “I’d best go now.”

  “Come again tomorrow,” Hattie said. “There’s ever so much to discuss.”

  Legrand hesitated. Then came a twitchy smile—the first smile Hattie had seen since he returned.

  “That sounds hugely appealing,” he said, and went out.

  Next morning, Monday, Legrand returned as promised. He invited Hattie to accompany him to the river, where Hardee’s escape bridge was rushing to completion.

  The second span was in place between Hutchinson and Pennyworth islands, with a third and final section building to the Carolina shore. The river vista teemed with men, white and black, lashing and anchoring boats, unloading wagons of brush and straw to lay a firm path across Hutchinson Island, piling a carpet of rice straw on the nearest bridge section. “To damp down the sound of horses and men,” Legrand said.

  A Confederate ram, Savannah, smoked and steamed in a circle a short way downstream from the construction. Locally built, she was a queer vessel, her shape reminding Hattie of an iron turtle shell with the addition of a smokestack. Distant artillery banged away, staining the air with smoke and rattling windows along the main streets. Hattie had grown used to the racket. She could sleep soundly through it and in a curious way found its regularity comforting. That would end if the defending army slipped away to Carolina.

  On their way back to York Street, a commotion at Hupfeldt’s General Merchandise on Bryan Street attracted their notice. Hupfeldt himself, a spiky-tempered Swiss, was hopping up and down in front of a door hanging by one hinge and seizing hold of any person he could force to listen. Hattie and Legrand fell victim.

  “Look at this expensive door—ain’t it a disgrace? Nobody does nothing. I lost my whole stock of slates and pencils last night. I was going to sell them to bring holiday joy to youngsters. Grown-up thieves broke in, stole everything, and nobody does nothing—they’re too busy hammering up those pontoons.”

  While attempting to disengage, Legrand agreed it was a shame. Hattie smiled at the store owner. “Did those slates and pencils come through the blockade, sir?”

  Hupfeldt grabbed Hattie’s shoulders. “Are you accusing me? Are you saying I deal in contraband? Is that what you’re saying, little girl?”

  “Here, leave off,” Legrand said. He poked his crutch tip at Hupfeldt’s chin. Hattie lunged backwards and freed herself. Legrand wasn’t exactly speedy, but he kept up a good pace with Hattie leading him.

  As they retreated, Hupfeldt was still hopping up and down and shouting: “Tell me that girl’s name. I’ll put the law on her”—in midsentence he slumped—“if I can find any.”

  Out of reach of the retailer, Legrand paused to catch his breath. “I didn’t know toys were so scarce. Guess I didn’t think about it much.”

  “You were too busy being brave. Yes—I mean to say no, there aren’t any toys in the shops. I’ll bet that man wanted to sell his slates and pencils for a terrifically gouging price.” A memory of the two little girls standing in the gloaming came then. “I’ll make some toys. I can sew and whittle. Miss Vee surely has old scrap material on hand—she sews some of her own clothes. Not every child in Savannah will have a toy, but I’ll take care of as many as I can.”

  Legrand leaned on his crutch, regarding his friend in an admiring way. “Tell you what. I don’t sew, that’s girl’s work, but I can whittle. I’ll help you if you want. No sense all of Savannah being miserable come Christmas morning.”

  “Even if Sherman’s camped on the doorstep?”

  “Even then,” Legrand said with another jaw-clenching display of grit.

  Throughout the afternoon, Hattie and Legrand ransacked the house for materials to turn into stuffed dogs, cats, and rabbits. A rag bin yielded the makings of dolls. Legrand roamed nearby vacant lots and returned with an armful of stakes from an abandoned garden. Vee surrendered a small hoard of walnuts for doll heads, porcelain heads not to be had at any price.

  Hattie and Legrand surveyed the accumulation in a corner of the parlor. They agreed to devote Tuesday to starting their toy manufactory. “When will we deliver them?” he wanted to know.

  “Christmas morning. We’ll visit houses and ask if Saint Nicholas came during the night.”

  “For most places you already know the answer.”

  “Yes, and that’s when we’ll hand out a present.”

  “What if the Yankees are here? What if they forbid it?”

  “I’ll kick their shins if they try.”

  Legrand left laughing.

  After dark, a barrel-bellied sergeant with strong whiskey breath ran along the street knocking at every door. “By order of General Hardee, in the morning the pontoon bridges to Carolina will be open to civilians, up until a deadline at sunset. If you want to escape, it’s your chance. Good evening, ladies.”

  Vee and her guests convened in the dining room, where Vee’s best whale-oil lamp threw shadows on the walls. Vee opened the discussion bluntly. “Do we stay or go?”

  “How do you vote?” Sara said. “This is your house, after all.”

  “I’m deathly afraid of the Yankees, but I was born and brought up in Savannah. I’ve never lived anywhere else. I vote stay.”

  “I would say that too—I want to see Silverglass again. I particularly want to keep it out of the clutches of Judge Drewgood, and I can’t do that if I pole off to another state. You can vote too, Hattie.”

  Hattie thumped the table. “Stay. I’m going to catch at least one Yankee and thrash the daylights out of him.”

  Sara didn’t laugh at her daughter’s militancy. She and Vee clasped hands across the table. Hattie grew bold and laid her smaller hand on theirs. No one stirred or spoke there in the darkened room with three forbidding shadows printed on the walls.

  The exodus began Tuesday morning. Wagons and carts rattled up Bull Street, piled perilously high with carpetbags, trunks, pet cages, chicken coops. Entire families rode or walked. Legrand arrived at half past nine to report. “They’re crossing by the dozens.”

  “Well, let’s not pay any attention—we have work to do,” Hattie said. She told him of the unanimous decision to stay.

  “My folks cast their lot the same way, though I think Sparks would go if he could.”

  Sounds of flight were almost continuous as Hattie plumped herself down cross-legged on the parlor carpet and set to work. Her talent for handicrafts served her well. By noon she’d sewn and stuffed a denim dog, two calico cats, and a paisley pig; Vee’s stockpile of sewing scraps was extensive. Sara cheerily joined in, seated in a rocker and gently humming to herself while she snipped apart a coars
e sack. From the pieces she stitched mantel stockings. Legrand whittled the garden stakes into passable swords and nailed a short hilt to each.

  Miss Vee gave him two small blocks of pine wood; his blade flew. A crude locomotive emerged from the first block. Hattie applauded. Legrand held his creation near the window, inspecting it.

  “Needs paint.”

  “Isn’t any,” Sara said, sewing without looking up. Passing through on her latest inspection of locks and latches, Vee overheard.

  “I suppose I can give up my pen and ink. The ink is my own formulation—extract of magnolia and certain secret ingredients. Will that help?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “A lot,” Hattie said, showing one of the rag dolls with a gnarled walnut head. “I can put a face on her.”

  So the afternoon passed, with Hattie taking time only to walk Amelia, then water the pig and feed her some old cabbage leaves. Toys accumulated in a large wooden box previously used to store Vee’s collection of sheet music. A clock on an ornamental shelf near the Chickering upright chimed four. From the direction of the river, cannon opened up again. “The ironclad,” Legrand declared.

  As the daylight faded, louder salvos rumbled and thundered from all points of the compass. Vee brought in a scrawny evergreen cut from the backyard. “I suppose we need a tree, however meager.” With Legrand sawing and nailing, a flimsy base was made, strong enough to hold the little tree upright in a basin of water. It didn’t look anything like a traditional tree; it was rotund, bushier on one side than the other. Vee brought an engraving from a magazine and pinned it to the top of the tree. “Robert E. Lee,” she said, in case they couldn’t identify the stern white-bearded person.

  The parlor windows continued to shimmer with the ruddy light of artillery fire. Legrand reached for his crutch. “I want to see the bridge.”

  Hattie ran to him. “I’ll go with you.”

  “Is it safe?” Sara said, leaving off the assembly of another stocking.

  Legrand said, “She’d be safe with me, Mrs. Lester. But she can’t go without your permission.”

  Sara relented, and Hattie and Legrand hurried off through the red-lit dark. Shadowy figures filled the streets, rushing every which way. The youngsters stopped a block east of Broad Street and from there watched platoons of ragged men march down to the straw-covered boat bridge. The lines seemed to stretch on and on into the darkness. Legrand waved his crutch.

  “I recognize some of those boys. General Wright’s men. The left wing’s leaving first. What a sad night.”

  Hattie couldn’t hear the tramp of the retreating troops. She understood the reason for the deafening Confederate artillery barrage. “They’re all going, aren’t they?”

  “They are,” Legrand agreed.

  “We’re unprotected.”

  “Totally.”

  “What will they do with the cannon, haul them away?”

  “Spike them and leave them. I expect they’ll burn the turtle ram and a lot of other boats.”

  “It’s too horrible. I think we’d better go back.”

  “I think so too.”

  Cold dank fog was settling over Savannah’s spires and rooftops. Hattie longed for the comfort of Vee’s kitchen hearth. As they turned the corner into Whitaker Street, pistol shots cracked a block to the south. Glass shattered. Legrand seized Hattie’s left hand with his right, neither of them quite realizing it was the first time he’d touched her that way.

  “Someone’s looting a store. Quick, turn around. Go faster,” he said over the sudden staccato thumping of his crutch on the plank sidewalk.

  They fled east on Bay Street, then south. On Bull Street they ran into an Irish gang, young toughs rampaging through the fog, tossing stones and nasty epithets at dimly lighted windows. One laid hands on Hattie. “Here’s a morsel. Give us a kiss, little girl?”

  “Not on your life,” Hattie said, giving him instead a sock on the jaw.

  This was entirely unexpected from one who looked so tender; his startlement allowed her to separate herself and elude him. She dragged Legrand away while her victim recovered and began reviling her in language to make a stevedore redden.

  In Johnson Square, someone had started a bonfire bright enough to reveal the gargoyle faces of other looters battering a town-house door and baying for entry. Hattie and Legrand escaped notice and arrived panting in front of Vee’s house.

  “Bad night,” Legrand said. “I’ll stay to protect you and the ladies.”

  “No, you get back to the hotel, and your family.”

  “Does Miss Rohrschamp own a gun?”

  “I don’t expect so. She’s an artiste.”

  “Then find a shovel, a poker—anything. Bar your doors. Lock up your pig. I have a feeling some of these desperadoes were waiting for this chance.”

  The rising wind dispersed the fog but chilled the skin. Hattie’s stomach hurt. “You’ve changed, Legrand. You’re a lot—well, older.”

  “Guess we all are. Transmogrified, that’s a good word for it. You be careful now. Good night.” Off he went, hobbling.

  Pistol fire and hallooing echoed across the city. Hattie ran up to the stoop. The door refused to open—Vee’s handiwork. Hattie beat on the door with both fists. Sara answered. She raised a lamp to light Hattie’s face.

  “Thank heaven. We’ve been so worried. I shouldn’t have allowed you to go.”

  “Legrand took care of me, but there are robbers out. The army’s gone.”

  Hattie paused long enough to hug her mother and repeat her friend’s advice about weapons of defense, then sped on to untie Amelia. She pulled the pig inside and left her snorting in the kitchen with a chair bracing the door shut. Vee might complain, but Hattie would worry about that later.

  She took the kitchen poker to the parlor, where Vee hid the piano bench by sitting on it. Vee’s forlorn eyes gleamed in the reflection of Sara’s lamp. “What are we to do?”

  “Stay awake, all night if need be,” Sara said. Her reply was punctuated by doors splintering and looters shouting somewhere nearby.

  “Who is out there, Hattie, the colored?” Vee asked.

  “Didn’t see any. I recognized some Irish, but I expect anyone with empty pockets is running wild tonight.” Her eye fell on the box of toys. “I better hide those.”

  “Under my bed,” Vee said. Hattie gave her the poker, which looked about as useful as sewing thread in the hands of the quivering piano teacher. Hattie hurried the box to Vee’s bedroom and slid it out of sight. In the kitchen, Amelia’s protests had grown frantic.

  “You calm down, Amelia. You’ll be all right.”

  The pig squealed louder to dispute this. In the other bedroom, glass tinkled onto the pegged floor. Someone’s heavy boots came over the sill, ker-thump. Hattie bolted back to the parlor, closely pursued by a young tough wearing hobnail boots, a checked shirt, and a piratical scarf around his forehead. He was scarcely older than Legrand—a wan, cadaverous specimen of Savannah’s poor. His open clasp knife flashed in the light of Sara’s lamp.

  Vee let the poker drop. She flung up her palms to fend off the intruder. “Get away, get away. You shan’t possess me.”

  “I don’t want you, you old bag of blubber. I want your rings. I want your silver. I want your cash. Hop to it.”

  Sara said, “Hattie, do show the gentleman where everything’s hidden.”

  At first Hattie didn’t understand her mother’s peculiar request, or the way Sara’s eyes darted to the unlit hall. The young tough screwed around on his heel to look that way. Hattie caught on.

  “Oh, yes, sir, follow me.” She slipped by the felon. Behind his back, Sara quietly set the lamp aside and picked up the poker.

  The thief detected a moving shadow. He pivoted again, but not in time. Sara laid the poker across his shoulder. He squealed louder than Hattie’s pig.

  Both hands on the poker, Sara pounded the robber’s wrist. After the second blow, the knife flew into a corner. The thief gaped at the fragil
e woman with mayhem in her eyes. He ran back into the room where he’d entered and was gone.

  Vee shook mightily, not quite sobbing but close to it. Sara handed the poker to Hattie and knelt by her friend. “There, there. No one’s hurt. Just a window broken.”

  “But how many more will come before morning?” Vee’s round face glistened despite the night’s deepening chill. Hattie collapsed on one of the imitation Sheraton chairs with the poker between her knees. Atop the crude little Christmas tree, Robert E. Lee observed them with manful dignity. Somehow the sight of him made Hattie want to bawl. She resisted.

  Sara soothed and calmed her friend. The squeals from the kitchen grew less strident. The night wore on, noisy with running, shouting, shooting—the ravaging of an undefended city by the dispossessed.

  Around one o’clock, vandals overturned the backyard necessary and dug in the garden for ten minutes, presumably hunting for buried silver. Finding none, they went away.

  The next two hours were comparatively peaceful. About three in the morning, Hattie followed her mother outside to gaze at the red sky to the north. Boats burning on the river? The last desperate act of General Hardee? Could this be but four nights before Christmas Eve? Hattie thought of Christmas as something remote as the moon, never to be enjoyed again.

  Only next day did the temporary family hear of events elsewhere, courtesy of some of Vee’s neighbors and the Savannah Republican, which said in part, “By the fortunes of war we pass today under the authority of the Federal military forces.” Around 4 a.m., the mayor, Dr. Richard Arnold, had ridden toward the advancing foe with several of Savannah’s aldermen. Arnold carried a white flag.

  Unfortunately a half dozen unhorsed stragglers from Joe Wheeler’s cavalry caught them on the Augusta road and stole their mounts. The civic delegation met the Union advance on foot. Undaunted by the indignity, the mayor presented his petition. “Strongly influenced by the Christmas season,” he said, “we earnestly request protection of the lives and private property of the citizens, especially our women and children.”