Last Cavaliers Trilogy

by Gilbert, Morris

  Clay smiled, a twisting of his mouth with no humor in it. “It’s not always that simple, Mr. Steiner. Not for a man like me anyway.”

  Jacob started to reply, but then he stopped and grew silent. As a wise man, he knew that arguing with men in Clay’s position did little good.

  Chantel stared gravely at Clay, her violet eyes wide and dark. Her face was unreadable. All that Clay saw was disgust and dislike when she looked at him, but his perception was colored by guilt.

  He dropped his eyes.

  Finally she asked quietly, “So, what will you do, Mr. Tremayne?”

  Again it pained Clay that all warm familiarity was gone from her voice, and they were back to the formalities of relative strangers. “I’m going to join the army, of course, Miss Chantel.”

  “But why?” Chantel asked with a quickness that surprised him.

  For the first time that day he was able to look her squarely in the eye and speak pure truth. “Virginia is my home. I may be a wastrel, but I love my home. If Virginia fights, then I fight.”

  “One thing I have learned, in all my time in the South,” Jacob said, “is that these people love this country. And, in some ways, they already consider themselves set apart from the North. Many men will fight, Chantel. It will be a terrible war.”

  Clay asked curiously, “And what will you do, Mr. Steiner? Where will you go?”

  “I’ve been praying for God to give me some direction,” he answered, frowning. “But sometimes He demands that we walk in faith, without clearly seeing the path laid out for us. I do feel, though, that I will stay here, in Virginia. If, of course, my granddaughter will stay with me,” he said, patting her shoulder affectionately.

  “I will stay with you always, Grandpere,” Chantel said in a low voice. “You’re my family, you.”

  Jacob smiled at her then turned to Clay. “And so, Clay, you are going to join the army. Do you go to Richmond then?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All right. Would you be so kind to escort two peddlers there?”

  Sheriff Asa Butler appeared shocked to see Clay walk into his office. He was leaning back in a wooden chair on wheels but shot bolt upright when he saw him. “Clay Tremayne! I figured you were halfway to Atlanta by now.”

  “No, Sheriff. I’ve been—in Petersburg,” Clay said. “I came back to town to join the army. But first I wanted to come here to see if I have any charges against me.”

  He leaned back again, the chair creaking noisily with his considerable bulk. “No, as a matter of fact, you don’t. And that would be because of Miss Belle Howard. Those brothers of hers tried to send her back home before I could talk to her, but she just came sashaying in here by herself and told me what happened. Or most of it anyway. Enough for me to know that Barton Howard came busting in on you two, guns blazing. Miss Howard said that you weren’t even really trying to shoot him. You were just returning fire, and then you took off.”

  Clay said, “It’s true I didn’t shoot first, Sheriff.”

  Butler nodded; then his eyes narrowed as he looked Clay up and down. “So where’d you go, Clay? Ed and Charles disappeared for a couple of days after all the ruckus. Thought maybe they might have gone looking for you.”

  “Yes, they did.”

  “Did they find you?” Butler asked alertly. “You’re looking kind of whipped, Clay. You’re skinnier and pale.”

  Clay shifted on his feet uncomfortably. “They found me, all right. But Sheriff, I want to forget all that now. If I’m not going to jail, I’m going to war. Somehow that makes all this seem kind of…unimportant, if you understand me.”

  “No, I don’t think I do,” Butler said grimly. “If there’s a crime committed in my territory, I need to know it, and I need to do something about it.”

  “I’ve committed a crime. I shot a man, and even if it was self defense, in other days you would have arrested me and made me stand trial for it. But those old days are gone now, aren’t they? We’re getting ready to go to war, and the Howard brothers and I are on the same side, fighting for Virginia. I want stupid arguments like the one we had to be forgotten. There are much more important things at stake now.”

  Butler continued to stare hard at Clay. “If I know those boys—and I do—I think they might have been so red-eyed mad about Belle that they might’ve chased you down. I think they might’ve chased you down like a stray dog. And when they found you, they might not have worried about who shot first or any niceties like self-defense.”

  Clay was surprised at how close Butler had come to the truth. But it was true—the Howard brothers were all notorious for their tempers. Butler had dealt with them before. Clay merely shrugged and said, “Like I said, Sheriff, I want to forget all that now. So, unless you need me for anything more, I’m headed over to the fairgrounds.”

  The sheriff finally nodded. “All right, Clay. Maybe you’re right. It’s time to fight some Yankees instead of each other. Me and my boy are joining up, too. I expect you’ll run into the Howards. If you have any more trouble with them, you just let me know. War or no war, I’ll slap them behind bars so fast their eyes will cross.”

  “Thank you, Sheriff. But I don’t think I’ll have any more trouble with them.”

  “Better not,” he said.

  The Hermitage Fair Grounds, a wide field just northwest of the city, had in October of 1860 been renamed “Camp Lee,” after Colonel Henry Lee, or as he was better known, “Light-Horse Harry Lee,” the best cavalryman in the Revolutionary War and a proud son of Virginia. Even before Lincoln’s election, soldiers—in particular, cavalrymen, for Virginia men loved their horses—had gathered as volunteer companies in Richmond. By November, sixteen companies, about eight hundred men, were camped there and gave weekly parades and reviews. An article in the Richmond Dispatch praising the encampment said, “The land is now overshadowed with ominous clouds, and none of us can tell how soon the services of the troops may be needed.”

  Now that the time had come, the fairgrounds—as people continued to call it—was a mass of men, with hundreds of tents large and small.

  As Clay rode onto the grounds, he saw that there were probably as many horses as there were men. Even poor men in Virginia usually had at least one fine saddle horse.

  There was much shouting:

  “Here! Henrico Light Dragoons here!”

  “Hey you, Private What’s-your-name! What do you think you’re doing, riding a mule? Get down off that horse!”

  “Officers of Company B Chesterfield! Meeting at two o’clock this afternoon!”

  Such was the confusion that Clay had no idea where to go to enlist. A big two-story home was on a small rise overlooking the fairgrounds, and he guessed that would be the headquarters, so he carefully moved Lightning along in that general direction.

  He paused before a large tent, obviously a field headquarters. Two men on powerful horses were standing at the ready behind a line drawn in the dirt. Ahead of them a path had been cleared to the far side of the grounds. Obviously a race was in the making, and Clay stopped to watch. The signal was given, and the snorting horses thundered off. Men lining the path cheered and whistled and yelled catcalls. When the race ended, the smaller horse, a graceful bay, had won over a much larger and more powerful gray. The two men turned and trotted back, grinning.

  Someone slapped Lightning on the neck, and Clay looked down. A man stood there, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, wearing a wide-brimmed U.S. Cavalry hat. He was wearing a U.S. Army frock coat, but the insignia had been removed. As he looked up, eyes narrowing in the bright sunlight, Clay saw that he had blue eyes so bright they looked as if they projected their own light. His cinammon-colored mustache and beard were thick and bushy.

  “Hello, sir,” he said, “that is a fine-looking mount you have there.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Clay said, dismounting to shake the man’s hand. “I’m Clay Tremayne, from Lexington.”

  “I’m Jeb Stuart,” he said, “of the great state of Virginia. I�
�ve just been commissioned as a Lieutenant Colonel of Virginia infantry. Are you here to enlist, Mr. Tremayne?”

  “Yes, sir, I am,” Clay replied. “I was just on my way up to headquarters to see the adjutant.”

  Stuart stroked Lightning’s neck then in the expert manner of a true horseman, ran his hands down his chest and forelegs. “Very fine animal.” Standing upright again, he looked at Clay, and again Clay was impressed by his piercing blue eyes. Just now they were dancing with joviality. “I’d like to invite you to join me, Mr. Tremayne. I’ve already assembled a very fine group of men, and I think you’d be a valuable addition.”

  “Me or my horse, sir?” Clay asked, stolid.

  Stuart laughed, a rolling, booming laugh from deep in his chest. The men surrounding him couldn’t help but grin, including Clay.

  “Both,” Stuart said. “In fact, if you think you might want to join up with some other outfit, I may ask your horse to volunteer.”

  “But sir, didn’t I understand that you’re a colonel commanding infantry?” Clay asked in confusion.

  “So they tell me,” Stuart said with some regret. “But somehow, it seems, most of the men who have volunteered for my command have very fine horses. It looks like we may be mounted infantry. Until we’re cavalry, that is,” he finished with a devilish grin.

  Clay thrust out his hand. “Sir, my horse’s name is Lightning, and he wishes to volunteer. And sometimes I think this horse is smarter than I am, so I generally do whatever he wants to do.”

  Jeb Stuart said, “My kind of man.”

  It was nine o’clock before Clay returned to Jacob’s wagon.

  He and Chantel had stopped under a stand of trees just north of the fairgrounds, and they had been doing a brisk business all day. Although the government was provisioning the soldiers effectively, their numbers had grown to around eight thousand men in the city of Richmond, and so the food was spare and plain. Men flocked to the peddler’s wagon, buying candy and dried beef and canned foods.

  Even at nine o’clock at night, there were still a bunch of them there, gathered around Jacob’s campfire, laughing and talking and trying to flirt with Chantel. Clay noticed that she smiled at them and was polite to them, but she took no part in any private conversation with any of them.

  After a while they drifted away, and Clay rode in.

  Jacob called, “Clay! Come in, come in. Share our fire. And I think that we have something left for supper, though I must say that we’ve almost been cleaned out of foodstuffs. I’ll have to get busy tomorrow and go to the warehouse district. I know I’ll be able to find wholesalers there. Anyway, we want to hear about your day.”

  Clay dismounted and hurried to help Chantel, who was setting up a tripod over the fire. Soon they had it done, and she brought out a big iron pot. “I’ve been soaking these potatoes and carrots in beef broth all day, me,” she told Clay. “I put back one big slab of beef. I had to hide it or Grandpere would have sold it.” She gave him a very small smile.

  Chantel had laid out the cot mattresses under the trees, and they went to sit by Jacob. Clay told them about Jeb Stuart. “And so Lightning volunteered to fight for the Glorious Cause, and Colonel Stuart is allowing me to come along with him. I hope you get to meet Colonel Stuart. He’s a very interesting man.”

  Jacob looked out over the field, a sea of tents lit by hundreds of lanterns. “So many men,” he murmured. “And they’ve come so quickly to go to war.”

  “All over the South there are camps like this,” Clay said. “And we’re spoiling for a fight. In fact, Colonel Stuart already has his orders. In a few days, we’re going to Harpers Ferry. The commanding officer there is a Colonel Thomas Jackson. He’s already invaded,” he told them, grinning. “Colonel Stuart told me he crossed the Potomac and seized Maryland Heights. Sounds like a good start to me.”

  “It sounds as if you and your colonel spent some time talking,” Jacob observed. “That’s unusual, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but then he’s not like any officer I ever heard of,” Clay answered. “He’s not at all standoffish. We started out talking about horseflesh and went to see some of the horses that his men have. Then we just started talking about the forces and some of the plans the War Department has already formed. And then he did something else I’ve never heard of.”

  “What’s that?” Chantel asked curiously.

  “He gave me a note to take to the adjutant when I enlisted,” he said. “I thought it was something to do with the regiment. But when I went in to enroll, the clerk looked up at me and asked, ‘Have you attended West Point, sir?’ Of course I said that I hadn’t, and then he told me that Colonel Stuart had recommended me as an officer. Second Lieutenant,” he finished with pride.

  “Is—is that a good thing?” Chantel asked uncertainly.

  “Sure is. I mean, this is a whole new way of forming an army, so a lot of the companies that form elect their officers. It’s not as if you have to have a commission from the War Department, unless it’s a promotion to a colonel or above. But still, I can’t imagine why Colonel Stuart just decided like that to make me one of his second lieutenants. Maybe it was because it’s so obvious that Lightning is a gentleman of quality.”

  “Maybe,” Jacob said lightly. “But then again, maybe he saw the same thing in you.”

  “Doubt that,” Clay said, smiling a little at Chantel. She didn’t return it, but he thought that maybe her expression was not quite as remote as it had been.

  “I wonder,” Jacob went on, “just how many men will join this new army in the South. It will take many, many men to form an army that could defeat the United States Army in the North.”

  Carelessly Clay said, “Who are they, anyway? They’re businessmen and merchants and farmers. In the South we grow up with rifles in our hands from the time we can walk. I believe with leaders like Colonel Stuart we will outfight them every time.”

  “Maybe,” Jacob said softly. “I only pray God will shorten the time, and it will be over quickly.”

  “It will be,” Clay said confidently. “I think that we’ll whip them, Jacob. And I think that they’ll turn and run right back across that river and leave us alone.”

  Jacob nodded, but his thoughts were nowhere in agreement with Clay’s. He had lived in the North, traveled around it for years. He had seen the enormous bustling cities and gotten a sense of the hundreds of thousands of men who were of age to be in an army. He had seen the great factories, the commerce, the prosperity of the northern parts of America.

  All of these were in stark contrast to the South. It was sparsely populated, its economy was based on cotton, and almost all of the industries that existed were based on cotton, too. There were no great munitions factories in the South, and as far as he knew, it had not developed an import-export trade to the extent that they could easily import arms.

  But he said nothing of this to Clay, who was so obviously excited. Since he had known him, Clay had seemed to be a beaten man, aimless, unhappy. At least now he had a sense of purpose.

  Chantel was saying, “But you said you’ll be leaving in a few days?”

  “Yes, ma’am, that’s the word.”

  “You mean, you’re going to go, and there will be fighting?”

  “The war has started,” Clay said. “Not here in Richmond. But yes, Miss Chantel, I am going to leave, and I am going to war.”

  She started to say something and then seemed to change her mind. Finally she said, “May the good God watch over you always, Clay.”

  PART THREE: CLAY & THE GENERAL 1861–1862

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Go to sleep, little baby.

  Go to sleep, little baby.

  Four angels around your bed.

  To calm your sleepy little head.”

  Chantel was singing softly to Little Flora, or La Petite, as Jeb and Flora had begun to call her sometimes, who had gone to sleep on her lap. Looking across the room, she saw that Flora was watching her with a smile on her lips.

/>   Flora was holding Philip, and they were playing with some wooden blocks.

  “Why are you laughing at me, Miss Flora?” Chantel asked.

  Flora said, “I was just thinking what a good mother you would make.”

  “Me? I don’t have a man. I don’t have any plans to get one, me.”

  “You’ll get a man. I’m sure of that, and a good one, too.”

  Chantel continued to rock, studying the face of the child in her lap. “She is such a pretty girl,” she whispered softly.

  “We think she’s going to look like her father. She has his eyes.”

  “I think no. I think she’s going to be pretty like you. It’s hard to tell what your husband looks like with that bushy beard. Why don’t you make him shave?”

  “I gave up on that a long time ago,” Flora smiled. “He’s proud of his beard. Besides, he says it hides his ugly face, but I don’t think he’s ugly. I think he just hates to shave.”

  From the open window, the sounds of birds singing drifted in. Chantel listened, and memories came to her of the different birds she had known in the bayou. She missed the large herons and the brown pelicans and the other birds that she knew so well.

  The door opened, and Jeb stepped inside. He always looked as if he was in a hurry, and he never seemed to be tired, which always amazed Chantel. “Don’t be so loud. You’ll wake La Petite,” Chantel warned.

  “She’ll be glad to see me.” Jeb smiled. He kissed Flora and Philip, then came over, put his hand on Little Flora’s head, and stroked the soft hair. “Well, you won’t have to be taking care of us any longer, Chantel.”

  Chantel stood up. “You found someone?”

  “Yes. She’s a widow woman about thirty-five, I guess. Her husband was one of my men killed at Harpers Ferry. I had to go tell her of her husband’s death and found her all alone. She truly needs the money. I think she’ll do well.”