Savannah, or a Gift for Mr. Lincoln

by John Jakes

  Legrand was still skeptical: “Savannah’s a big place. Zip could be anywhere.”

  “Use your brains, Legrand. Do you think a man who looks like a clown will be locking up nigras in someone’s mansion, or a hotel room? Too public. We’ll start with the rail yards. I’ll signal every few minutes.” She repeated the odd whistle she’d identified as that of the red cardinal.

  “Hattie, you can’t go places like the rail yards. All kinds of desperate people are camping there. You’re a female. Just a child.”

  Hattie stopped in the middle of Bull Street and put her hands on her hips. “Take that back.”

  “What part?”

  “The part that isn’t true. The child part.”

  Seeing her dudgeon, Legrand muttered, “All right, I take it back, but—”

  “No more argument. I can go anywhere in Savannah with you to guard me.” She seized his hand and folded it tight in her mittened fingers. “You’re a war veteran, Legrand. Come on.”

  Born and brought up in a religious household, Hattie had listened to Bible readings and Sunday sermons that included alarming descriptions of Hades. Here on earth, she never expected to see anything resembling that dismal place, but she found it on West Harris Street, where bonfires burned in the wreckage of Savannah’s once-busy rail yards.

  Legrand held her hand as they wove through the maze of rolling stock converted to shelters or chopped to pieces to stoke fires. Animal bones boiled in reeking kettles. Starving families stared from abandoned cars of the Central of Georgia, the Savannah & Albany, the Ocmulgee & Flint Rivers. Begging hands stretched out to them in the Central’s gutted roundhouse. Pleas and whimpering, cries and cursing pursued them.

  Repeatedly, Hattie whistled and listened, whistled and listened, without a response. She wanted to run from the dreadful place, but Zip’s plight kept her searching. Finally, after an hour, she said, “He isn’t here.” They hurried away on Harris Street.

  Hattie sank down on someone’s cement stirrup block. Legrand listened to the trees soughing in the wind. He turned up his coat collar. “Where now?”

  “The docks. Plenty of empty cotton warehouses down there.”

  “Plenty of evil dram shops, too.”

  “We’ll go anyway. It’s still hours till curfew.”

  They descended the bluff at Barnard Street. Lights on moored vessels made pretty reflections in the water. Less pretty were the raucous shouts and arguments issuing from dingy groggeries. Legrand refused to let Hattie enter any of these. She shivered on the cobbles, warily watching to left and right, while Legrand went in, kepi in hand, to describe the odd-looking stranger. He emerged each time with the same negative shake of his head.

  A little farther on, the taverns gave way to lightless buildings where cotton had been stored for shipment through the blockade. Legrand found crates or hogsheads for Hattie to stand on so she could peer into ground-floor windows. These were uniformly dark, caked with dirt and salt spray. Climbing down, she shook her head just as he had.

  Presently they reached a storehouse whose grimy windows showed pale lantern light. Hattie squeezed Legrand’s hand excitedly. “What can I stand on?” He surveyed the area, found nothing convenient, formed a stirrup of his palms and boosted her.

  Hattie clung to the brick sill. She gasped. “Hsst! Let me down.”

  He jockeyed her to a safe landing. Hattie whispered, “I saw a colored man, chained to a pillar with manacles.”

  “Zip?”

  “No, but there are other nigras in there, I just couldn’t see them clearly.”

  She stepped into his cupped hands a second time. She pressed against the building to the right of the window, not immediately visible if someone looked her way. Her throat was dry, and her lips. She worked up a supply of spit and after two attempts, got off a successful cardinal call.

  She listened. Heard the river lapping, men bellowing a chantey in the distance. She started to fall, clutched the sill. Legrand balanced her like a circus acrobat. Secure again, Hattie risked showing herself in the window. She whistled.

  In the warehouse, a caged bird answered.

  “He’s there, Legrand.” She heard commotion inside, saw a lantern’s beam flash on the grimy glass as she jumped down.

  A door at the end of the building banged open. A lanky Negro with skin Hattie thought of as saffron raised his lantern over his head.

  “Run, Legrand. He’s armed.”

  The Negro spied them. Legrand snatched her hand and almost jerked her out of her shoes. The Negro didn’t bother to chase them. He shot at them instead.

  Nearly seven hundred souls crowded into smoky Masonic Hall at the corner of Bull and Broughton. Mayor Arnold brought the meeting to order. He introduced the first speaker, old Bettelheim, one of the petitioners. The hardware merchant hobbled to the platform.

  “Friends and fellow citizens of Savannah. Tonight I appeal to your reason and your compassion for your fellow man. The South, and our fine city, have endured four years of devastating war. We have seen loved ones killed and maimed on distant fields of battle whose names remain foreign to us. We have suffered hunger, pestilence—personal privations of every kind. Those whom we feared—those who came to subdue us—are not, by and large, the despicable vandals and desecrators they were portrayed to be.”

  Stentorian booing erupted in the gallery. Others quickly silenced the protester. Someone yelled, “Go on, Bettelheim.”

  “I have little more to say other than to plead for a return to normalcy, and for willing submission to national authority under the Constitution. The time has come to bury bygones in the grave of the past.”

  Applause followed, but Vee withheld hers.

  One by one, men and women rose from the audience to repeat Bettelheim’s appeal in different words. Mayor Arnold took the podium to thank all who’d spoken. His face showed strain, even anguish, but he endorsed what the speakers had said. More booing; half a dozen walked out. An alderman called for the question.

  Sara glanced at Vee and raised her hand when the vote was taken. Seconds passed. Then Vee did the same. Cries of, “Traitors,” and “Miserable sycophants,” rang from scattered places in the hall, but the peace vote carried overwhelmingly.

  Judge Drewgood, seated with Lulu in the first row, stood up and ostentatiously called for silence. Nine rows behind him, Sara pulled a face. Just like him to wait for the outcome before declaring himself. Finger pointing heavenward, the judge lauded the assembly’s decision as “a milestone on the road to renewed peace and prosperity.”

  His oratory, belated as it was, nevertheless generated an ovation. Courthouse cronies surrounded him to congratulate him. Vee started, ducked as something sailed overhead. The rotten egg broke on the judge’s brow and dripped down.

  “Phew.” Sara held her nose as others were doing. Vee fanned herself. The judge immediately became a foul-smelling island in a sea of rapidly retreating well-wishers.

  On the way out to Bull Street, Vee said, “I’m not sure it was the right outcome.”

  “It was the only possible outcome, Vee. The war’s over. We must bind up the wounds and start afresh.”

  Sara and her friend returned to York Street at six. From the parlor, Sara called, “Hattie?” There was no response. Adam walked out of the kitchen, long-faced.

  “She’s not been here in some while, Miz Lester.”

  “Do you know where she went?”

  “Ma’am, I don’t. Sergeant might.”

  The ladies hurried to Winks’s bedroom and unceremoniously woke him. He rubbed his eyes. “That friend of hers, Lamar—”

  “Legrand,” Sara said. “He dropped in just as we left.”

  “Guess he and Hattie left soon after. I must have been asleep.”

  Sara looked stricken. “I pray nothing’s happened to them.”

  In the silence, Winks’s grim expression echoed the same fear.

  “Through here,” Hattie cried, leaping into a doorway.

  Legrand warned her
that she mustn’t enter the place, but she didn’t hear or didn’t care. She was already dashing toward a front table, where roistering sailors goggled at Hattie’s skirt and bobbing curls. A man in a striped jersey caught her wrist. “No ladies permitted on these premises, missy.”

  “An’ there’s the door.” The florid barkeep snapped his towel toward the entrance. Hattie pulled and yanked, but the tipsy seaman wouldn’t release her, in fact found her struggles hilarious. Legrand leaped forward, snatched a glass off the table and poured beer on the sailor’s head.

  He sputtered and spat; everyone else including the barkeep laughed at his expense. Hattie broke away. “Must be a back door,” she cried, rushing on.

  At that moment their saffron-hued pursuer entered from the dock, pistol in hand. He’d fired two shots at them, both of which missed. The barkeep waved a hickory billy.

  “No niggers allowed. Get out.”

  He flung the billy. It sailed end over end, forcing the saffron-colored man to duck and dodge out of sight to avoid it. Hattie and Legrand reached the back door.

  “Did you expect that to happen?”

  “I thought it might,” Hattie said. “This way.”

  A dark, fetid passage led to a rickety stair. They climbed at top speed, arriving in a similar passage that opened on Bay Street, between deserted offices. Hattie leaned against the bricks, caught her breath.

  “You were very brave, Legrand. Thank you.”

  Legrand bent over, hands on his knees, nearly fainting from the strain on his wound. “I think we lost him.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “We can go home.”

  “No.”

  “No? Then where—?”

  “Madison Square. Someone has to rescue Zip before they move him and hide him where he can’t be found.” She darted into Bay Street, running. Legrand rolled his eyes and limped in pursuit.

  “I suppose I’ll have to be sassy to get us in the door,” Hattie speculated as they neared Union headquarters.

  Legrand didn’t disagree. “I’ll wait outside. Couldn’t hold my head up if anyone saw me in that den of blue-bellies.”

  Hattie was right about the need for audacity and a sharp tongue. The sentries at the Macon Street door of Charles Green’s house crossed their bayonets to bar them; the steel gleamed in the light from porch lanterns.

  “No admittance to civilians after six p.m.,” said the private, who looked too young to shave.

  “I’m here to see General Sherman about an urgent matter.”

  “Girlie, didn’t you hear him?” said the other sentry.

  “I heard, but if you don’t stand aside, I promise the general will have your scalps.”

  The soldiers exchanged looks. The second told the first, “Fetch Major Hitchcock, Daniel. We’ll see what he makes of this.”

  The bayonets uncrossed. The first private about-faced and marched into the house. Legrand retreated to the street, folded his arms, waved Hattie on when the sentry returned to admit her to the downstairs. Hitchcock met her there.

  “Miss Lester.” The major couldn’t conceal amusement. “When Private Daniel said a young lady insisted on seeing the general, I should have suspected it was you.”

  “I wouldn’t be here if a man’s life didn’t depend on it.”

  “What? A man’s life?”

  “Possibly more than one.”

  The major glanced toward the stairs. “The general’s at supper. He routinely works until midnight or later. I hesitate to interrupt him.”

  “In this case, I think he’ll appreciate it.”

  Skeptical, Hitchcock said, “We shall see.” He disappeared upstairs.

  Hattie walked to and fro in the lavishly appointed hall. Two clerks busied at their desks; somewhere a telegraph key tapped. Otherwise the mansion seemed asleep—much quieter than when she’d visited the first time.

  Boots on the stair announced Hitchcock, then Sherman, coatless and in disarray as usual. The general’s old suspenders showed, and a napkin was tucked into his collarless shirt. Sherman greeted her with a mock bow.

  “Miss Lester. Do you always visit at mealtime?”

  “Mr. General, the matter won’t wait.”

  “The same could be said of the excellent broiled catfish I left on my plate. Never mind, come along to my office. That will be all, Henry.” The major quietly retreated.

  Seated in the second, inner parlor, a desk between them, Sherman tugged the napkin from his shirt, heedless of scattering crumbs. Hattie had planned her strategy on the dash to Madison Square, but a sudden premonition of failure unsteadied her. The general was a commanding and impressive figure, not unfriendly, but watching her with a steady gaze that demanded an explanation.

  “Major Hitchcock used the word urgent when describing your visit.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m here because of a warehouse down on the river. A Negro named Zip is being held prisoner there, and other Negroes may be confined with him. My friend Legrand suspicions it has something to do with selling colored replacements for white soldiers up north.”

  “That noxious trade does exist. I despise it. Continue.”

  “Zip is a brave person. He helped rescue my mother and our friend Miss Rohrschamp when looters broke in. He saved the life of one of your own men, Sergeant Alpheus Winks, of Indiana, when a looter threatened to shoot him.”

  Sherman scraped a wooden match on his sole, lit his cigar, and flicked the match into a spittoon. “I think I am ahead of you, Miss Lester. You want me to send some men to rescue your colored acquaintance.”

  Hattie gulped and nodded, not personally intimidated by this fabled enemy so much as fearful of his power to deflect or crush her plan. “Yes, sir, that’s what I came to ask.”

  “But you don’t really know why this Zip fellow is being detained?”

  “Only what I told you, sir. The purpose must be illegal, because one of Zip’s jailers fired shots at my friend Legrand and me after we discovered the warehouse.”

  Sherman leaned forward, more the father than the soldier. “Not injured, were you?”

  “No, sir, thank you for asking. We came right here so I could appeal to you for help. I can offer something in return.”

  That startled him. “What, precisely?”

  “Well, everyone’s heard about your message to Abraham Lincoln—”

  “Very well received, it was,” Sherman said, nodding behind a veil of smoke. “The president was gratified that the lost army, as the papers referred to us during the march, had turned up found at last. Exactly what is this quid pro quo you have in mind?”

  Hattie sat up straighter, hands in her lap, striving to imitate her mother’s calm and reasoned demeanor. “I am a good Southerner, General. An ordinary person.”

  Sherman interrupted. “I mean no discourtesy, but permit me to stop you.”

  “Sir?”

  “A match I use to light this cigar is ordinary, and it burns brightly. Professors of science tell us that every seventy-five years, Halley’s Comet streaks across the cosmos. It, too, burns brightly. But it is not ordinary. Do be careful how you use the word ordinary in reference to yourself. In my lifetime I have met scores of ordinary people, and I cannot possibly classify you as one of them. Do you take my meaning?”

  “I think so. May I go on?”

  His nod granted permission.

  “I propose to write a letter to Mr. Lincoln. Your message gave me the idea. I’ll say to him that the South is beat for good, anyone with a thimbleful of brains should face it, and the country must come together again. You called me a—a certain kind of rebel, but it’s time for me to put that away. I will try to be a good American. I’d like the president to know my feelings. They say he’s a kind and understanding man.”

  “Even in Dixie they say that?”

  “Well—some do.”

  The general studied the end of his cigar. “You want me to see that your expression of newfound loyalty reaches the White House, in return for which I’m to
send men to rescue your friend and any other colored gentlemen held against their wills at this mysterious warehouse?”

  “That’s the bargain I came here to propose, yes, sir.”

  The general remained silent for nearly a half minute. Hattie wiggled on her chair, palms perspiring. Sherman tapped ash from his cigar but missed the spittoon’s brass rim by inches.

  “I’m willing to entertain part of your proposal, even endorse it. But I can’t endorse the whole of it.”

  Hattie felt failure like a stone in her middle.

  “You can’t?”

  “I cannot sit idly by while brave soldiers expose themselves to uncertain dangers, in your behalf.” Hattie fought the impulse to weep.

  Sherman rushed to the door, flung it wide.

  “Orderly. Ready my carriage. I want an armed squad to accompany Miss Lester and myself to the river, at once.”

  Abruptly awakened from a whiskey-induced doze at his hotel, Isaiah Fleeg was not in a gracious mood, or anything near. His shadow advanced and retreated as he stomped back and forth, showing his minions, and the prisoners, how incensed he was.

  His henchman hung back. The squat man with the earring had lost a coin toss and thus drawn the duty of rousing Isaiah. The yellow-skinned man had stayed to watch the prisoners: Ralf and Zip immobilized on their pallets with leg irons, rebellious Nehemiah still manacled to the stair pillar.

  Isaiah pulled up short to revisit the errors of his Negro helper: “Let’s go over this again. You saw a youngster through that window. You gave chase and discovered two spies instead of one. You shot twice, and both rounds missed. You, a strong man, couldn’t catch two children.”

  “I tol’ you, boss, they ran into a saloon down the way. Coloreds cain’t go in there.”

  Isaiah slapped his yellow gloves in his palm. “Don’t hand me excuses. What I want is the identity of those spies.”

  The craven prisoner, Ralf, pointed to Zip. “He know who they are. He say so when the girl looked in the window. He kind of spilled it out, then took it back.”