Now Gibbs brought up the ancient argument. “This war will never last for two years. We’ll send them packing, probably within six months. Our men are more outdoorsmen than the Northerners. They don’t know anything about hunting, and that’s all it is, really. It’s just that we’re hunting Yanks instead of deer.”
Morgan gave up. “Gibbs, I really don’t think it’s that simple. I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree.”
Finally Leona spoke up. “Morgan, it’s just hard for me to understand you. Don’t you see that this war is going to be our moment? It will be in the history books forever, how the Confederate States of America declared their states’ rights and the rights of all the people in those states to live as they please. Our children, and all of our descendants, will see that we are heroes! We fought and died for the Glorious Cause!”
Morgan was astounded. Never in his life had he thought that Leona Bledsoe would be so blind. It was alien to him that she would have such romantically shallow sentiments. Numbly he shook his head. “Leona, I don’t think you’ve actually thought this through. No war can be glorious. Especially civil war, brother against brother. ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’”
“Great heavens, Morgan, I’ve never known you to be so dreary!” she said heatedly. “You, who can claim a friendship with General Robert E. Lee himself. I’m sure he would give you a commission, and you could be an officer, maybe even on his staff! But here you sit, mouthing self-righteous platitudes. Is it possible that my father is right? Morgan, are you a coward?”
That question began to haunt him, and he knew he must find the answer soon.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When President Lincoln had issued his call on April 15th, for a seventy-five-thousand-man militia to subdue the treasonous Southern states, he had given the Southern forces twenty days in which to “disperse and return peaceably to their respective abodes.” Morgan, along with the Confederate government and military, took this to mean that President Lincoln would wait until May 5th to begin active military operations against the South. Morgan knew this meant that after that fateful day, he would no longer be able to buy supplies—or at least have them delivered. He was sure that the Northern blockade would become effective, deadly effective then.
Since February, Morgan had traveled to Baltimore twice, to place complicated orders with DeForge Brothers Imports & Exports. Henry DeForge’s brother was older than he was and had long retired, but the general manager of the firm was a professional, helpful man named Paul McCray. When Morgan explained his connection to the firm and his guardianship of Jolie DeForge, Mr. McCray then personally helped Morgan with all his needs. Morgan ordered foodstuffs, household supplies, farm supplies, tools, leather, textiles, and hardwood lumber from all over New England and the Midwest. McCray obligingly made the arrangements to have them shipped to Richmond, and Morgan knew rivermen who could deliver to Rapidan Run. Mr. McCray even helped Morgan with purchasing the things that he needed that could be found in the South, such as smoked hams, coal from western Virginia, beef from Texas, and fruit from Florida. Morgan, of course, had always simply purchased such things from a general store; he had never bought in bulk. Mr. McCray’s help was invaluable. Morgan had to build a storehouse and a smokehouse, and by the end of April every single building, including the house, was stocked full of everything he could think of that Jolie might need…in case something happened to him.
Morgan’s winter crop of barley and rye did very well, but at harvesttime in March he was discouraged. He had three hundred acres of crops, and only four men to bring it in. He knew there would be no affable leasing of slaves, with daily payment to them, from Wade Kimbrel as he had with Henry DeForge. Kimbrel would charge Morgan, certainly, and he would never let a slave of his have one penny. Furthermore, Morgan knew that any former DeForge slaves would run the minute they set foot outside of Wolvesey property, so he was sure that Kimbrel would stipulate that they could only work under his cruel overseer’s supervision. It was just an impossible situation.
But again, as he had done so many times before, Amon saved the day. “Mr. Tremayne, I know about a dozen free men and boys livin’ in shacks in that ol’ Wilderness. I’ll git ’em to work, whether they want to or not.” Sure enough, Morgan was able to employ fourteen sturdy field hands to bring in the crops. And this year, instead of selling what he wouldn’t need, he stored it all in dozens of metal-lined barrels, another item that Mr. McCray had known where and how to order.
On the first day of May, Morgan received something of a shock. A letter arrived from Mary Lee, from her home at Arlington. The tone of the letter was light and rather careless. One part read:
The rose garden here is perfectly lovely this spring. I’ve been able to paint it on these warm sunny days. Twice I have had good results, I think. Perhaps the next time you visit, Cousin Tremayne, you may give me your opinion of them.
Morgan was horrified that Mrs. Lee would still be sitting placidly at Arlington. After May 5th, he thoroughly believed the property would be behind enemy lines. The very next day he headed out to Arlington, with Amon driving the carriage and Rosh and Santo driving the wagon. By May 14th, he had moved her, with some of the family belongings, to her Aunt Fitzhugh’s home in Ravensworth.
General Lee was in Richmond during this time, and he had sent her many letters trying to get her to leave her beloved home. He could not go to her, of course.
Morgan didn’t even try to consult with General Lee. He just went to Arlington and took charge of Mrs. Lee and then returned home. He did send a brief note to the general explaining what he had done and reassuring him that Mrs. Lee was well and safe for now.
General Lee sent a courteous note of thanks back to him.
Morgan continued working hard at Rapidan Run. As always, running a horse farm was a tremendous amount of labor. And once the harvest was over, it was time to plow and ready the fields for spring planting. To Morgan, May, June, and the first two weeks of July, 1861, seemed to flash past him in a blur.
But on Tuesday, July 16th, Morgan rejoined the world, his world that was at war. Over thirty thousand men in gray were coming together and marching north.
On June 20, 1861, a great comet appeared in the sky. It lit up the night; the stars paled in comparison. Many thought this was an ill omen, a foreshadowing of war and blood and desolation.
It was rumored that an elderly slave named Oola, who belonged to some close friends of Mary Todd Lincoln and her husband, Abraham, could conjure spells. She was a tall, large woman with eyes like gimlets and gray-black skin drawn tight over her grim face. She said of the great comet, “You see dat great fire sword blaze in the sky? There’s a great war coming, and the handle’s toward the North, and the point’s toward the South. And the North’s gonna take that sword and cut the South’s hide out. But that Lincoln, man, chilluns, if he takes that sword, he’s gonna perish by it.”
Lincoln had already taken up that sword, as had hundreds of thousands of men, North and South. The young men of the North flocked to enlist. Lincoln had called for seventy-five thousand, but he could have tripled that number and not been disappointed.
At the time the whole thing looked like a big picnic—to men who were not soldiers and knew no better. One young private in the Union Army wrote home about
the happy golden days of camp life where our only worry was that the war might end before our regiment had a chance to prove itself under fire. The shrill notes of the fifes, and the beat and roll of the drums. That’s the sweetest music in the world to me.
It was true, the sound of jaunty military marches sounded everywhere. Boys whose recruit roster was not full rode about the country in wagons with drummers and fifers seeking recruits. They rode into the towns with all hands yelling, “Fourth of July every day of the year!”
The training these recruits received was very sketchy indeed. Almost all of them, including most of the officers, were amateurs, and it was not uncommon to see a captain on a parade g
round consulting a book as he drilled his company. Most of the privates had been recruited by one of their acquaintances, and the volunteer companies elected their officers. Naturally they had been on a first-name basis with their lieutenants and captains all their lives, and these men could see no point whatever in military formation, drill, and particularly discipline.
For many long frustrating months, General Lee, the consummate soldier engineer, fought to overcome the prejudice by Southern men that digging earthworks was beneath them.
President Lincoln was a man bowed down with care. The government offices were packed with office seekers, as they always were with a new president. Abraham Lincoln was not a brilliant military strategist, and he knew it. He chose his war cabinet with care, but it was hard for him to discern exactly the right course to take, the voice to listen to, the man to trust with so much at stake.
In a meeting with the war cabinet, General Scott, the brilliant soldier who had won the Mexican War, became angry at those who said the war would be easy. He almost shouted, “You think the Confederates are paper men? No, sir! They are men who will fight, and we are not ready to engage the enemy at this time.”
Edwin Stanton, secretary of war, stared across the room with hostility in his cold, blue eyes. “General, we’ve been over this time and time again. I concede that we are not as well prepared as we would like to be, but neither are the rebels. And I must insist that we have here more than a military problem. Surely we all realize that our people must have a victory now. If you do not know how transit and changeable men are, I do! If we do not act at once, the issue will grow stale. Already the antiwar party is shouting for peace, and many are listening. We must strike while the iron is hot!”
The argument raged back and forth until finally President Lincoln stood up, his action cutting all talk short. Every man in the room was alert waiting for his word. He said firmly, “Gentlemen, I have listened to you all, and I have prayed for wisdom. I presume that Jefferson Davis is praying for that same quality. We have little choice. I feel that from the military point of view, General Scott is absolutely correct, but as Mr. Stanton has pointed out there is the matter of the people. They must agree to this war, and they must have something immediately. Therefore, the army will move at once. General McDowell will be in command, and he will be ordered to march as soon as possible and engage the enemy. Some of you disagree with this decision. I can only ask you to put aside your objections and join with me in prayer for our union.”
Thus it was that the first great battle of the Civil War was set in motion. The objective of McDowell’s army was Manassas Junction. If this could be taken by the North, the railway system of the South would, for all intents and purposes, be wrecked. So the army marched out of Washington, led by General McDowell, who was the President’s choice. Practically no one else thought him at all a capable soldier, much less a capable commanding general.
Still, the Union forces invaded the South. Young men in blue faced young men in gray across a little creek in northern Virginia called Bull Run. That night many of them still felt great bravado; the Yankees had sightseers coming to observe the festivities, and the Rebels believed that they would each and every one of them beat three or four Yanks.
Shortly after dawn, even the most naive of them knew that this was to be a day of fire and blood. Sheets of flame lit up the bright spring air as the cannons exploded and the muskets blasted. As for General McDowell, he had been in only one battle in his military career, in the Mexican War, and he had not particularly distinguished himself. Mostly he was famous for his Homeric appetite. Once he ate an entire watermelon which he pronounced “monstrous fine.”
But on the morning of July 21st, the General did not find the situation at Bull Run Creek monstrous fine. First he tried throwing his men directly across the creek and meeting the enemy head-on. But to his shock, he found that the Rebels were a murderous and implacable enemy. He tried to flank them, and he found that the Confederate commander, General P. G. T. Beauregard, hero of Fort Sumter, had moved his men to again face the now-ragged blue line dead-on.
All of that endless day, the two armies maneuvered and struck, maneuvered and struck. The Union Army, who had believed that this would be little more than a military drill and an opportunity to show off, began to disintegrate. A few men began to run, and the inevitable happened in the mob mentality.
The panic spread. First squads threw down their muskets and ran, and then companies, and finally almost the entire rabble, were fleeing back toward Washington. The seasoned officers could not stop them, and they themselves tried to retreat in good order, but it was impossible. An artillery caisson was turned over on the Bull Run Bridge, blocking the way to safety, and it only fueled the madness. With a few exceptions, the entire Union Army was in full flight. The spectators in their fine carriages turned and ran for the safety of Washington, too.
And so the boys in blue were soundly beaten and had, as so many had predicted, turned tail and run away in disgrace. In a way it was unfortunate that the Confederates had won First Bull Run. It only served to reinforce the strongly-held belief that it would be a short war and an easy victory.
But to Abraham Lincoln, it meant something altogether different. He had no need of any military adviser to tell him that old General Scott had been right. The Confederate Army was by no means a paper tiger. It was going to be a long, tragic, costly war.
The line of ambulance wagons, the walking wounded among them, seemed endless.
Morgan, on the side of the road south to Richmond, watched with horror. In his head he had known this would happen. But having a mental certainty and seeing the reality were two very different things.
Then a sight galvanized him. He saw two of his friends, brothers, walking down the road. The older brother, Blair Southall, had a bloody bandage around his head, and his left arm was in a crude sling. He was supporting his brother, Nash, who was barely able to limp along. His right pants leg was bloody from the thigh all the way down to his shoes.
Morgan jumped off Vulcan and pulled him over to the two men. “Blair? Nash? Here, get up on my horse. I’m taking you home.”
Blair looked up, blinking because of the blood smeared in his eyes. “Morgan? That you, my friend? What did you say? You think I can ride that devil of a horse?”
Beside him, Nash gave an odd half sigh, half moan and crumpled to the ground, his face bloodless and sickly white.
“Mount up, Blair,” Morgan ordered and helped the injured man step into the stirrup then pushed him up into the saddle. He picked up Nash Southall with newfound strength and lifted him up. Between them, he and Blair managed to get him mounted behind Blair, completely collapsed against his back. Morgan took Vulcan’s reins and whispered to him, “You know what’s going on, boy. Be easy; go easy.” The slow ride back to Rapidan Run was probably the lightest, smoothest walk Vulcan had ever done.
Amon, Rosh, Santo, Evetta, Jolie, and Ketura all came running down the drive to meet them.
Tightly Morgan said, “These are friends of mine, Blair and Nash Southall.”
Evetta said, “Git ’em in the house. Jolie, Ketura, you come on right now and help me.”
“There are more,” Morgan said. “Many more. I’m going to take the wagon back and bring home as many as I can. Understand?”
“Well, don’t just stand there. Hurry up,” Evetta said, throwing her arm around Nash Southall, who had come to, and helping him as he stumbled toward the house.
Quickly Amon said, “Mr. Tremayne, I’ll drive the wagon. You, Rosh, and Santo ride. We can double up two men again like you just did. Evetta’s got good sense. She’ll have them girls getting the barn ready so’s we can take as many as we can.”
“You’re a good man, Amon,” Morgan said, remounting Vulcan. “I thank God for you and your family.” He turned and sped off toward the Richmond road.
By nightfall there were eight wounded men in the house and eighteen in the barn. Morgan paused for a moment to watch Jolie
as she went to each man’s pallet and knelt down. She was checking bandages, giving them water, promising hot soup and fresh bread, smiling at them, reassuring them. She looked up and saw him and got to her feet to come over to him.
Morgan said, “You’re a fine young woman, Jolie. Not many young ladies would do this. Not many of them could.”
“I just want to help them, sir.” She sighed. “I wish we could have taken them all.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Evetta’s made a treat for us all today,” Jolie said, bringing an enormous steaming platter into the dining room and setting it in the center of the table. “Roast beef with carrots and potatoes and turnips. I love turnips,” she added, so childlike that the men at the table exchanged amused glances.
Unaware, Jolie took her seat at the foot of the table and said, “Mr. Southall? Would you take Mr. Tremayne’s seat at the head of the table, please?”
Morgan had gone to Mrs. Mary Lee’s rescue again. She had written him that her rheumatism was bothering her some, and Morgan had known that meant she was hurting a lot. He had left this morning to take her to the Hot Springs, in Bath County. She had been there before and swore by the healing properties of the waters.
Blair Southall now took Morgan’s seat, and the other six men, including his brother, sat down. Blair said a short blessing, and the men began to dig in. Seated by Jolie, Nash Southall rolled his eyes. “Gentlemen! Bunch of rooting hogs, that’s what you look like. Get your big paws off that platter and pass it down here to me so I can serve Miss Jolie.”
Shamefaced, Blair started the platter down the table. But he and the others then started helping themselves to the bread, the cornbread, the stewed apples, the celery sticks, the sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, and the corn relish.
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