Freedom's Banner

by Freedom's Banner (retail) (epub)

  Around the coasts the blockade tightened. Shortages began to be felt by civilian and serving man alike. Many in the rebel armies marched barefoot, even in the worst of the winter weather; many of those that did not were shod, and in a lot of cases clothed, from the corpses of the fallen. A dead man, whether friend or foe, needed no boots. In May 1863 the South suffered a terrible blow in the loss of Stonewall Jackson, a national hero, at Chancellorsville – ironically one of the Confederacy’s great victories – and then, in July of the same year, came Gettysburg, a brutal defeat for the Rebels, a disaster compounded by the equally calamitous loss of Vicksburg on the same day. Yet even with the Mississippi lost and the Confederacy to all intents and purposes cut in half by the Federal gunboats that patrolled its waters, the optimists doggedly refused to accept any thought of defeat. The mistake, they argued, had been to try to defend too great a territory. Now the Southern forces could be concentrated at the perimeter of the Southern heartland; and let the Yankees do their worst, not another foot of ground would be conceded.

  Deep in that heartland, the household at Pleasant Hill, like most of their neighbours, survived first one and then another difficult, unpleasant winter. They survived too the rapid devaluation of their currency, the even more frightening runaway inflation, and the requisitioning of many of their stores and of their remaining horses and mules – with the exception of the old carriage horse, Star, for whom the Confederate army could find no use but in a stew, and, as the army quartermaster quite seriously told Mattie as he rounded up the last but two of her cows, things hadn’t got to that state yet. As they struggled through that second winter of cold and mud and driving rain, they began to hoard what little gold they had left – the Confederate paper money was all but useless, even in the Confederacy – and bartered with neighbours, or with the townsfolk of Macon. For the past two seasons Joshua had overseen the planting of long rows of okra on the borders of the cotton fields – matured okra seeds tasting much more like true coffee than any of the other inventive cereal substitutes – and this above everything else became their currency. They patched their clothes and they turned the sheets and they got used to living with shortages of absolutely everything. There were times when Mattie thought that if she ever saw, let alone tasted, another unseasoned grain of rice, hunted for another recipe to make the slices of dry, rubbery apple that was one of their staples edible she would scream and run mad. But yet they survived – even becoming used to the hardships. What was harder to come to terms with, no matter how much time passed, was the change in Logan Sherwood. It was as if, with the loss of his sons, the purpose of his life had fled, and with it any great interest in what went on around him. He was healthy enough; he simply rocked on the porch, or sat for hours closeted in the library, living it seemed in some inner world of his own, as if the real world about him, with its trials, challenges and difficulties, did not exist. All of the everyday decisions fell to Mattie, and to Joshua, without whom, she was certain, Pleasant Hill would have disintegrated completely. Not that Logan ever gave any sign of acknowledging that. Though he no longer banned Joshua from his sight, to Mattie’s knowledge neither did he ever show the slightest gratitude for the feat of organization that kept the household fed at least adequately, and, more importantly, that held firm the fragile thread of discipline that prevented unrest and a mass escape – as had happened on a plantation upriver – or worse. What kept Joshua loyal, what made the man work his fingers to the bone, break his back and maybe his heart, for a master who showed no interest in and no gratitude for what he did was beyond Mattie. She could not ask him, for through these dark and difficult months it seemed to her that Joshua had put up a barrier between them that she could not breach. He was courteous as ever, quick to help or to counsel, but – deliberately, she was certain – he never approached her when she was alone, nor attempted to speak of anything beyond the everyday running of Pleasant Hill. Almost she began to wonder if she had imagined those fleeting, strangely intimate moments of contact between them. Meanwhile there were other things to occupy her hands and her mind; but, busy as she was, nothing could fill the void of loneliness in which she lived. There were times when she longed, from the bottom of her heart, simply for someone to talk to. But times had changed and allegiances were inevitably shifting with them; it came as a shock to discover that even Lucy, whom she had considered her friend, was no longer entirely to be trusted. It was lucky for the girl that it was Mattie who found her, one afternoon, behind the street of slave cabins, reading aloud a pamphlet about Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which declared free any slave held by a master in rebellion against the government of the United States – whilst declining to do the same for any belonging to a master in a loyal state – to an intently listening crowd of slaves. Mattie had been surprised at the sense of betrayal that had filled her.

  That night, silently, Lucy came as usual to her room to attend to her. ‘Why, Lucy?’ Mattie asked. ‘You know the trouble the Proclamation is causing! What are you trying to do?’ She had not been able to bring herself to report what she had seen and heard to Logan or to Joshua – even to mention the detested Proclamation was virtually a hanging offence on any plantation – but neither could she ignore her own hurt, or the immense danger of Lucy’s subversion.

  Lucy stood quietly.

  ‘Lucy? Will you answer me, please? Don’t you understand the danger of the Proclamation? Do you really know what it means?’

  ‘I know what it means, Miss Mattie.’ The girl’s eyes had met and held hers. ‘It means we’re free.’

  ‘It means Mr Lincoln says you’re free,’ Mattie said, sharply, ‘which means precisely nothing. Mr Lincoln is the president of a foreign country. His word means no more here than – than the King of Timbuktu’s might. You know that.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Mattie.’

  ‘Then – why?’

  ‘They’re my people, Miss Mattie. They have a right to know.’ There was pride in the lift of the girl’s head. ‘You taught me to read your own self, Miss Mattie. For what? On’y to read the things you want me to see?’ The girl shook her head. ‘Don’t work that way, Miss Mattie. You know it.’

  Mattie knew it indeed; and, despite her own loss, was nothing but relieved when, a few days later, Lucy absconded in company with a young field hand called Peter, part of a steady trickle of runaways who were taking advantage of the growing disorder in the countryside to run north.

  * * *

  It was early summer again, the summer of 1864. War notwithstanding – whilst in Richmond the guns of battle could be heard, the peace of Pleasant Hill remained unbroken – the sun shone, the birds sang, the flowers gave their heavy perfume to the warm and fragrant air. For days now, sometimes weeks at a time, Pleasant Hill was as good as cut off from the world. Their single ancient horse was too precious an animal to use unless the trip was absolutely essential, and the days were gone when a slave could be trusted to walk the long miles to Macon and back without supervision, so news came to them from passing travellers, of which there were few, or from the occasional newspaper that Joshua brought back with him when he did risk old Star in the shafts of a light carriage and make the trip into town to barter precious fruits, vegetables or eggs for staples they did not produce themselves such as sugar, tea or the inevitable rice.

  It was from such a newspaper, already two days old, that they learned of fighting in the north of Georgia, a bare hundred and fifty miles from them. The Union commander was that same Tecumseh Sherman who had fought at Shiloh. Mattie remembered, uneasily, other things she had read about him in the past couple of years; how in Mississippi he had openly encouraged his men to live off the land they took, regardless of the needs of its people, how the wholesale looting and destruction of plantation houses had left those landmarks that had come to be called ‘Sherman’s Tombstones’ – the fire-scarred chimneys that were all that was left after the red-headed Ohian and his men had passed through. She scanned the page – there seemed no doubt that the Conf
ederate General Johnstone would hold against the attack; surely, he must? For if he did not, the great Southern storehouse and railhead of Atlanta lay vulnerable, less than a hundred miles south, and only forty or so miles as the crow might fly north-west of Pleasant Hill itself. It was unthinkable that the Yankees should strike so far and so deep into the very heart of the Confederacy.

  Yet that was what they intended, and that, as those anxious summer weeks wore on, was exactly what they did. Whilst in Virginia General Beauregard stubbornly held out at St Petersburg, thus preventing Grant from besieging the Southern capital, in Georgia Johnstone, outgunned and outmanoeuvred in a coolly planned and increasingly vicious campaign by Sherman, was pressed back day by day and week by week until, after eleven weeks of savage fighting, the exhausted Rebels fell back for the last time and the enemy, like a wolf, was at the gates of one of the most strategically important cities of the South.

  Atlanta panicked. The trains that were still running south from the great terminal through unoccupied Georgia were packed with wounded men and with military supplies being salvaged from the storehouses; there was scant room available for frightened civilians. Those unlucky souls who could not find a space on the requisitioned trains left the doomed city in any way they could; in carts and in carriages, or if necessary on foot. Many chose not to follow the main route through Macon, for fear of being overtaken by the ogre Sherman, and took instead the smaller roads that wound through the countryside bordering the Ocmulgee. The first intimation the inhabitants of Pleasant Hill had of the exodus was when an exhausted family in a mulecart piled high with possessions stopped to ask for food and water; Mattie noted that the wife, a small, worn woman with a tight mouth and thin, greying hair, eyed the men and women who served her with a dislike and distaste that put Mattie’s teeth on edge despite her pity.

  ‘Y’all best be gone soon as you can,’ the man said, spooning grits into his mouth, and speaking through them as he chewed. ‘That devil – once he takes Atlanta, an’ he will sooner or later, you’ll see – he’s gon’ fire ever’thin’ he can lay torch to. Done it in Mississipp’ – he’ll do it here all right, no reason ter think he won’t.’

  His wife nodded. Looked around with eyes that burned with envy and a scarcely veiled satisfaction. ‘Place like this – be the first he makes for, most like.’ She slapped at a whining child. ‘Be still, Sam! An’ keep your hands from that brute. That’s a slave-hound. He’ll have your hand off iffen you ain’t careful.’

  Mattie bit back temper. ‘Here, Jake.’ The dog looked from the small, sticky, inviting fingers he had been licking to his mistress, decided for once on obedience. Mattie turned back to the man. ‘But – why would the Yankees come here? If Sherman takes Atlanta he’ll have the railhead, won’t he? That’s what he wants, isn’t it? Won’t they stop there?’ she asked, uncertainly. ‘There’s nothing for them here – the railroad runs a long way south –’

  The man lifted his grizzled head. ‘That’s as may be, lady,’ he said, softly. ‘But I had a cousin up in Mississipp’. An’ he reckoned Ol’ Sherman surely hates the South for rebellin’, an’ that’s the truth. No tellin’ where he’ll stop, lady. He’s goin’ ter wipe out Atlanta, that’s for sure; but whether he’ll stop there –’ he turned and spat over the porch rail, ‘– our lads’re startin’ ter run like rabbits – there’s no-one to stand against him for long, I’m tellin’ yer that. Won’t be a lot left iffen he does take it into that cursed red head of his to come through here, you mark my words.’

  ‘If you want to get to Macon by dark, Sir,’ Joshua said quietly from behind Mattie, ‘then you’d best be on your way as quickly as possible. I’ve had the kitchen pack a few supplies for you.’

  The man grunted. Mattie threw Joshua a swift glance of thanks. No-one else thanked him.

  They stood together and watched the rickety cart off down the drive. ‘Joshua? Do – do you think there’s anything in what he said? If Atlanta should fall, is Sherman really likely to come this way?’

  Joshua shook his head. ‘There’s no telling, Miss Mattie. There’s no reason that I can see that he should. And anyhow, the way it seems to me, we’re not going to do any better running off down the road like chickens with our heads cut off than staying here. At least till we know what’s happening.’

  She nodded, swallowing the sour taste of fear. ‘You’re right, of course.’ She glanced towards the library door.

  Joshua nodded. ‘Someone has to tell him.’

  A thought – a conviction – struck Mattie at that moment. ‘We can tell him till we’re blue,’ she said with resigned certainty. ‘We won’t get him to leave. Not if Lucifer and all his avenging angels were coming.’

  Joshua allowed himself a rare, if bleak, smile. ‘My thoughts exactly, Miss Mattie.’ He turned away.

  ‘Oh – Joshua?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Mattie?’

  ‘Where’s Peg?’ Peg was the girl who had taken the missing Lucy’s place. ‘I haven’t seen her since last night. Is she ill? Does she need anything?’

  His reply did not come quickly. ‘She’s gone, Miss Mattie.’

  ‘Gone? You mean – run away?’

  He nodded. ‘Last night. With Tige, Betsy, Jo-Jo, –’ he spread his hands ‘–an’ maybe a dozen or so field hands. There’s no way you’ll stop them now, Miss Mattie. Not with the Yankees so close.’

  ‘No. No, I suppose not.’ She stood for a long time after he had gone, still and thoughtful, her hand resting upon Jake’s soft, warm head, her eyes distant. With the departure of the mulecart and its unpleasant occupants there was a strange quiet about the place, a hush, as if the world held its breath.

  And then, rolling menacingly beyond the horizon like distant thunder, she heard the sound of guns.

  * * *

  Mattie was right. When told of the situation – though even he had already understood the meaning of the far-off, continual sound of the Federal bombardment – Logan listened calmly and politely, shrugged a little and said simply, ‘They come or they don’t. If they do – then let ’em. They won’t take Pleasant Hill easily.’

  Mattie shook her head, exasperated. ‘Mr Sherwood, if worst comes to worst, you can’t take on the whole of the Yankee army on your own!’

  He fixed her with a level eye. Suddenly he looked like the old Logan, firm and authoritative. ‘Are you suggestin’ that I run away, my dear?’

  She shook her head, helplessly. ‘It isn’t running away. It’s – it’s being sensible –’

  ‘An eminently praiseworthy thing to be under normal circumstances. However –’ he shook his head, gently ‘– not these circumstances. If they do come then you, of course, must go.’

  Crossly Mattie picked up a cushion, banged it back into shape and dropped it back onto the chair. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ She straightened and held wide exasperated hands. ‘You see? This wretched place has infected me at last. Even I’ve stopped being sensible –’ and was rewarded by the glimmer of a smile.

  * * *

  Throughout that month of August they got used to the sound of the bombardment, and the sight of the distant flickering glow in the sky at night. It was obvious now that Sherman’s intention was to reduce Atlanta to rubble. Yet still the routes to the south were open and still a small but steady stream of refugees called at Pleasant Hill. Had they been feeding as many mouths as before, their supplies would have been strained to the limit; but with the Yankees so close, as Joshua had predicted, those slaves that were left now deserted en masse. Only Joshua himself remained, and Sol and Dandy, and Prudence the cook with her daughter Sapphire, and Shake, who was sweet on her. Between them, they did their best for the unhappy, half-starved travellers who trailed up the drive; and on almost every occasion the advice they were given was the same: leave. Leave while you can. Don’t stay within Sherman’s reach. They spoke as if he were the devil himself. On one occasion a group of ragged, grey-clad soldiers came to the porch; deserters, Mattie was almost certain. They were hungry as h
yenas, and less well-mannered. They each carried a long, well-honed knife, and each looked more than ready to use it. To Mattie’s huge relief, when they arrived Logan had taken himself off to walk Pleasant Hill’s neglected acres, a pastime he indulged in more and more often lately. Where his chancy temper would have led them with these particular visitors she dreaded to think. When they left, discretion having been by far the better part of valour, the Rebel deserters went clad in Sherwood coats and boots – albeit too big for three out of four of them – and each carrying a bottle of Logan’s dwindling and precious whisky supply, to say nothing, she was fairly sure, of a few trinkets tucked into their pockets. Only the firearms they had demanded had not been handed over. When they had casually splintered the stout gun cupboard it had been to find it empty apart from an ancient carbine and a damaged hunting rifle.

  ‘What did you do?’ Mattie asked Joshua in amazement, in no doubt that no-one but he could have worked such a trick.

  In answer he walked to a corner of the hall, bent to lift the edge of a floorboard, artfully notched. There in the cavity beneath lay the handguns and rifles that would normally be kept in the cupboard. ‘Never thought I’d have to hide them from white folks,’ Joshua said, with one of his surprising and caustic flashes of humour.

  In the relief of the moment Mattie could not help a small explosion of laughter. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘that’s one miracle. Now you’re going to have to work another.’