Yankee in Atlanta

by Jocelyn Green

  “They can start without me.” He sat on the sofa and pulled her onto his lap. “I’m not the pope.”

  “Obviously.” She covered a laugh with her hand, and he laughed with her.

  “I miss you, Ruby.” He grew serious. “It seems like the last few weeks, our married life has just been—”

  “Not what you expected,” she finished for him.

  He shrugged.

  “I am not what you expected.”

  Warning flared in her eyes as she wiggled off his lap and sat beside him. Please don’t shut me out already. Not now. “I didn’t say that.” And if you would stop putting words in my mouth this would be so much easier. “I had hoped …”

  “For more.”

  He clamped his mouth shut, irritation twitching behind his eyes. But she was right. He had hoped for more love, more passion, more closeness. More of his wife. Could he even call her that if they had not yet consummated their vows?

  “All right.” Ruby pressed her lips together. “Then tell me. What is it you had hoped for?”

  She scooted from him, but he caught her hand in his. “This.” He pressed a kiss to her hand. “You.”

  Her nose pinked, and her chin quivered. “I know,” she whispered. “But I can’t.”

  “There is no fear in love. No fear, darling. No fear.”

  Tears spilled down her cheeks, and Edward swiped them away with his thumbs. His heart squeezed as her forehead knotted, and leapt when she threw her arms around his neck and cried on his shoulder.

  “Shhhh, it’s all right,” he murmured to her as he wrapped his arms around her waist. He could be her rock. But the fire inside him burned for more. Her green poplin gown was smooth beneath his hands as he slowly skimmed up her sides from her waist—and grazed the swell of her breasts with the heels of his palms.

  Eyes suddenly wild, Ruby reared back like a skittish horse and slapped him clean across his face. “I told you I can’t!”

  Edward was off the sofa in a flash, his hand covering his stinging cheek. “That was an accident, dear, and by the way, a man should not have to apologize for coming into contact with his wife’s body, fully clothed or otherwise!”

  His blood boiled. He had done nothing wrong—if anything she should apologize for her unreasonable restrictions—and yet she would make him feel like a lecher if she could! She was his wife, hang it all!

  “I can do nothing right by you, I see that now. Why don’t you do us both a favor and hang a sign when you’re open for business, all right?”

  She gasped. “You said you wouldn’t hurt me.”

  “You said you’d be my wife.” So we’re both liars.

  Tripping over Aiden’s blocks, Edward stumbled out of the room, grabbed his hat and Bible from the hall rack and escaped into the evening air, slamming the door closed behind him. The humidity was a relief compared to the oppressive atmosphere in his own—borrowed—house.

  Absently, Edward fiddled with the bookmark dangling from somewhere in Proverbs. It was a braid of Ruby’s hair, tied at both ends with satin ribbon, given to him during their engagement.

  Lord, was I wrong to believe this marriage could work?

  Atlanta, Georgia

  Thursday, July 21, 1864

  July dragged by on blistered feet while Rebels ran roughshod over it. The sky to the north had burned red on July 9 when Johnston fired the Chattahoochee bridge behind him, but the Yankees crossed the murky river anyway. Three days ago, President Davis replaced Johnston with John Bell Hood. A general who would yield no more ground, or die standing.

  “Atlanta will not, and cannot be abandoned,” touted the Southern Confederacy as Rebel soldiers filled fortifications ringing the city, and hundreds of deserters and stragglers slinked south through the streets. Many of Atlanta’s refugees and residents vied for space on trains already clogged with the wounded being evacuated to points farther south. Markets crowded with housekeepers, but soaring prices turned many away. A barrel of flour: $300! A pound of sugar: $15! Locally grown sweet potatoes at $16 a bushel, and no other vegetables or chicken to be had in the city at all. In a restaurant, a plate of ham and eggs with a cup of coffee went for $25—more than two months’ pay! The uproar of a city turning inside out provided easy cover for robbers who smashed open and looted houses, depots, and stores in the darkness. Starving stragglers and hungry residents broke into any place that promised food. The arsenal, commissaries, and factories had moved to Macon, and the railroads ceased to run for anyone outside the military. The swollen war-time population of 22,000 was now reduced to 4,000 stalwart citizens. Houses were deserted, their gardens blighting in the sun. The newspapers evacuated, leaving Atlanta riddled with rumor and speculation. Even Col. George W. Lee had left.

  The air pulsed with the sound of cannon that could only be a few miles away. Still, Caitlin McKae would not leave. This was Ana’s home and Noah’s, and she would not abandon them even if she could.

  Susan, however, I could do without. But she’d never say it aloud. Susan was obviously unhappy. The best remedy Caitlin could suggest—helping someone else in need—had been stubbornly refused every time. Naomi seemed to make up for her lack by doing the work of two. In fact—

  “Susan.” Caitlin knocked on her bedroom door, nudging it open with her knuckles. “Have you seen Naomi today?”

  “No.” She rolled over in her bed, unhelpful as usual.

  Caitlin’s mouth screwed to one side as she looked out the window into the inky darkness. Had Naomi really not been home since yesterday morning? “I’m going to go look for her. She never came home to sleep and pick up the baskets of biscuits for the patients. I’ll take them with me. If Ana wakes, please go to her.” The poor girl had been having nightmares of Noah dying in battle ever since they had been able to hear the cannons.

  She did not relish moving around the city at night, but it was the only time guards did not stop citizens for their passes—sometimes every two blocks. Fine idea, she thought sarcastically, to remove the guards in time for the rowdies to have full run of the streets. Hidden in her apron pocket, her loaded derringer flopped against her leg with every step. She prayed she would not have to use it on the battlefield.

  The city had long since run out of gas for the street lights, so Caitlin made her way across the railroad tracks by the light of the moon. The bright sound of breaking glass jerked her head to the right, where a Confederate cavalry team raided stores and impressed everything they took a fancy to, scattering clothing, stationery, and pipes on the street to be trampled by their own horses. Quietly, she turned left, ducking into the shadows until she arrived at the railroad depot known as the Car Shed.

  Lanterns flickered beneath its vaulted ceiling like fireflies as dark-skinned women tended a floor paved with moaning, bearded patients. The hospital staff was so limited, Naomi had told her, that eight out of ten volunteers were impressed slaves. Mutely, Caitlin wondered how they felt aiding men who had fought for the right to keep them enslaved.

  Nose pinching with the smell of human waste and blood, Caitlin waded into the churning sea of men, thankful that after her service on the battlefield, nothing would shock her. Flies swarmed and mosquitoes dipped in and out of wounds, most of which were in the head and arms, since the armies had been fighting in trenches. Many men had lost at least one eye. A man screamed several yards from Caitlin, and she jumped, nearly tripping over a coffin at her feet.

  “Gangrene,” she heard someone say. “The only thing for it is to pour nitric acid right on it. Fries the skin to a crisp.”

  Tears bit Caitlin’s eyes even as she muscled through her gag reflex. She realized then, that even worse than the fresh wounds she had seen in every variety, were old ones.

  “Caitlin!”

  She turned toward the voice, but did not dare move, waiting instead for Naomi to come to her.

  “What are you doing here?” Naomi asked. She looked yellow in the lantern-light, framed by wisps of untidy hair.

  “You didn’t
come home. I was worried.” She handed the baskets of bread to Naomi.

  “Thank you. Yesterday’s battle at Peachtree Creek—there are eight hundred here just on this floor, and I have no idea how many elsewhere. It seems as though we just finish evacuating patients when more come in. All that can be moved, must be moved. Atlanta will not be held.”

  Spewing wood cinders, a train of boxcars ground and wheezed its way into the station, and Caitlin waited until her voice would be heard. Divided loyalties tugged on her heart as she processed the news. “Will you go with them? With your patients?”

  “I’ve run twice already, and I’m tired of it. I’ve got no place to go and I’ll not be a permanent ‘runagee.’” She leaned in. “Besides, if my son took the oath to be a Yankee up at Gettysburg, surely there must be some gentlemen in the lot of them.”

  The train cars clattered open. “Naomi, do you need help? Loading the men in the cars? I daresay I have more strength than you, seeing as you haven’t slept in almost two days.”

  “If you like, I’ll not stop you.”

  “Let me take your place. Please. You’ll be no good to anyone when you faint.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Naomi nodded. “I just might deliver your biscuits and collapse somewhere. That’s Dr. Welford over there. Take orders from him, and tell him I sent you.”

  Caitlin did.

  Urgency surged in her veins now just as it had when she had evacuated Union wounded from the fields of battle. They were men, and men in mortal danger still, which was far more important than the fact that they were Southern. How many Southern women had her regiment alone rushed into widowhood?

  “Do you mind if I help?” Caitlin approached a Negro woman crouching beside a patient. When she lifted her kerchief-covered head, a white smile flashed on her face.

  “Don’t mind if you do.”

  “Why, Bess! How can you be doing this?”

  Bess stood and pressed her hands to the small of her back as she stretched. “Easy answer is that I’ve been made to. But the truth is, helping those who can’t help themselves is the right thing to do. Haven’t you ever heard of the Good Samaritan?”

  “But you’re—you’re—” A slave, she wanted to blurt out. And the Confederacy means to keep you that way!

  “I know who I am, Miss Caitlin. Can you say the same?”

  No answer formed save the erratic beating of her disoriented heart.

  “Mm-hmmmm.” Bess shook her head. “Well, the Lord knows who you are, even if you don’t, and He loves you. He loves me as much whether I’m slave or free, and yes, He loves these pitiful creatures at our feet. ‘There is a balm in Gilead, to make the wounded whole.’” Bess’s rich alto voice rose in song as she motioned for Caitlin to help her lift the broken man at their feet. “‘There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul.’”

  Until her limbs burned and her back ached, Caitlin helped Bess heave groaning men into rickety boxcars, packing them like sardines on scant straw. The odors from their bodies magnified in the hot, confined space, until it coated her mouth and nostrils. As they worked, dozens of other slaves joined their voices to Bess in soothing harmony.

  Sometimes I feel discouraged,

  And think my work’s in vain,

  But then the Holy Spirit

  Revives my soul again.

  With her throat too tight to speak, Caitlin dared to pray that the God who could revive the discouraged slave would revive her heart as well.

  Caitlin arched her back before bending one more time to lift yet another patient beneath his knees, his bare feet pitiably cut up and blistered. Bess helped Caitlin swing their patient up onto the car floor, then Caitlin climbed up after him to help move him to the back.

  “Halt! Caitlin McKae, you devil Yankee spy, halt in the name of the law!”

  Chills swept her sweat-filmed skin as she rounded on the car’s gaping doorway. In an instant, Oliver Jones leapt into the car after her.

  “Just where do you think you’re going?” the provost marshal snarled.

  Caitlin drew a foul-tasting breath. “I am simply helping the wounded onto the car, as this woman can tell you.” She nodded at Bess.

  “Their testimony don’t stand in court. You ought to know that by now. You are hereby under arrest.”

  “On what grounds?”

  He yanked her arms behind her waist, twisting unnecessarily, and latched the handcuffs into place. “On the grounds of the Confederacy.”

  “What is the charge?” she tried again, willing her voice to remain low, controlled, though the weight of the metal on her wrists made her want to fight. He hopped off the train first, and she followed.

  “You got no pass. I took it away myself. You’re not carrying a forged pass, now, are you?”

  She grit her teeth as his hands skimmed her body, falling still on the pistol in her pocket. “Looky looky, what do we have here?” He retrieved the gun and aimed it at her. Cocked it. “It ain’t already loaded, is it?”

  Caitlin’s breath came faster now, pushing against her stays. “Is it a crime for a woman to defend herself?”

  Jones laughed. “You’ve saved me the trouble of using my own bullets. How thrifty.” He poked the barrel into her spine. “You’re coming with me.”

  Inside the Atlanta Hotel, several pinched-looking ladies sat with their hands folded tightly in their laps, including known Unionists whose husbands had already fled town. Caitlin felt their eyes on her as Jones yanked her up the stairs and into a room.

  Jones leaned against the bedpost, while a youth with scant hair covering his upper lip slouched against the wall between two chairs and a washstand. It was such a strange place for a military tribunal hearing that Caitlin hardly knew whether to take it seriously.

  “Do you promise to tell the truth?”

  “I promise not to lie. But I also invoke the Fifth Amendment.”

  After a string of choice words, Jones shoved a newspaper under Caitlin’s nose. Richmond Enquirer.

  “Is this supposed to mean something to me?”

  “I would say so.” Jones spoke around a cigar drooping from his mouth. “Leastwise, it has your name on it.”

  “Pardon me?”

  He jabbed a finger on the print. To C. McKae: Stay well. Watch for Jack. Be ready.

  The words crashed in Caitlin’s mind. Quickly, she scanned the text surrounding the message and surmised these were messages from Northerners to Southern loved ones. “This is a Richmond paper,” she said. “C could stand for Charles, or Carl, or Cathleen, or any number of other names.”

  “But it doesn’t.” Jones stepped forward with two more papers, folded into squares, and marked with indigo circles. “These are from two other papers, published in March.”

  To Caitlin M: Come home. Loving arms await you.

  C. M., Atlanta: Must talk in person. Get out before it’s too late!

  “Someone sure is trying hard to reach you, Miss McKae. What I want to know is, who? Why? Who is Jack?” Jones blew cigar smoke in her face.

  Visions of her mother and brother swam before her. But she would not give them up for anything. Just as Union spies were known to be in Atlanta, Confederate spies were very likely planted in New York City, too. Wouldn’t they come after Vivian if given a reason?

  “I asked you a question, ‘C. M., Atlanta.’”

  She answered with stony silence.

  “It’s a code,” Jones said, and Caitlin almost laughed. “C. McKae … Caitlin M … C. M., Atlanta … What does it mean?”

  Caitlin watched with some fascination as the paranoid Jones explored aloud all sorts of possible meanings for the simple message. It means my mother, finally, wants me back. A lump formed in her throat. Still, she said nothing.

  Blue smoke puffed from his cigar as he crossed his arms. “You ought to think mighty hard about your situation, little miss. You were caught walking without a pass. Concealing a weapon on your person. Boarding a train to escape the city. You are named three times
in this here paper by an agent in the North. And an anonymous tip told us you sent a code north to a Jack McKae. Taken together, we have no choice but to conclude otherwise but that you are an agent of espionage.”

  And just how did you come by that tip? Caitlin’s scalp tingled at the idea that perhaps Jones had threatened Prudy somehow in order to get that information. Or worse still, that she willingly volunteered it. Still, “I vow, I am not a spy.”

  Jones clucked his tongue. “And you said you wouldn’t lie to us.”

  “I am not lying. I’m not a spy. I am a governess for Noah Becker, a soldier in the Army of Tennessee. Tonight I delivered food to the soldiers at the Car Shed and stayed to help load them into the train for their evacuation. That’s all.”

  “Mm-hmmm. And the newspaper ads. Explain those to us, if you will.”

  “This is the first time I have seen those papers. I’m as surprised as you are.”

  “But what do they mean?” Jones’ smoldering eyes bore into hers, and she held his gaze.

  “Are we quite finished then?” she asked at length, her voice calm. “I’ve told you what you need to know. I am not a spy. Now you will please release me.”

  “I don’t believe I will.”

  “Search my house if you like. I’ll escort you myself.”

  “I think not.”

  “Please. There is a little girl in my charge I cannot be away from for long, and the hour is late.”

  But Jones was already pulling Caitlin to her feet, out the door and into another room. After removing the handcuffs, he shoved her forward with the barrel of her own pistol. The door closed and locked from the other side.

  Atlanta, Georgia

  Friday, July 22, 1864

  Susan covered her ears to mute Rascal’s nervous whine as much as to muzzle the fear ongoing inside her head. “Hush!” A swat against the dog’s protruding ribs sent him scurrying, tail between his legs.

  The Yankees had come. The cannons sounded as if they were on Whitehall Street this very day, and Susan was sure she could hear the scream of men being shot to pieces. A shell burst inside the city this afternoon. No one was safe! And Caitlin McKae had vanished, leaving Susan alone with a child she had never wanted to begin with. She especially did not want her now! What she wanted was to get out of here, like all the other sensible citizens and storeowners who had gathered up what they could and hightailed it to the train station.