The young soldier with the head injury had died during the night, but two new prisoners were stretched out upon the straw where he had lain, and two more had been left on the bare floor across the room. The ladies set themselves to work, but as soon as Lizzie could tear herself away, she carried the basketful of bread upstairs—under careful watch of the ubiquitous guards—where she was appalled to discover hundreds of disheveled, filthy, ravenous men crammed into a room the same size as the one below shared by forty officers and civilians. They too had no beds, nor straw, and their fervent thanks as they devoured their bread convinced her they had next to nothing to eat as well. It was the most heart-wrenching scene she had ever witnessed, and she grew indignant as she thought of the fine residence being refurbished for the Jefferson Davis family while the poor prisoners were kept in squalor.
She had scarcely finished distributing the last of the bread when the guard brusquely ordered her from the room. Rather than raise his ire by brandishing General Winder’s pass, she bowed graciously and asked him to take her to the officers’ quarters. There Congressman Ely greeted her as courteously as before, though he looked wan and tired behind his good cheer.
“Is it my imagination,” she asked, looking about the room, which seemed smaller than the day before, “or have your numbers increased?”
“Yes, we’ve welcomed more good fellows into our company,” he said. “The rumor is that the commandant is going to throw together a few more prisons and distribute us among them, but although this place is quite as miserable as it could be, we don’t know whether to hope for a transfer or pray to remain.”
“You don’t know whether you’re in the frying pan or the fire.”
He managed a laugh. “Yes, Miss Van Lew. You understand perfectly.”
“I hope the book I lent you yesterday offered you some distraction.” She studied his face, where exhaustion and determination were plainly written. “I hope you didn’t stay up late to finish it. I could have waited another day.”
“I would have been awake anyway.” He winced and rubbed his shoulder. “Our generous guards overstuffed my featherbed, so it was impossible to get comfortable. I was also determined to return the book to you today, knowing how it is your favorite.”
He limped slightly as he made his way through the crowd of prisoners to an orderly pile of belongings placed against the wall—a jacket, a newspaper, a tin cup, and Lizzie’s book. Stooping, he picked it up and brought it to her.
“What did you think of it?” Lizzie asked, aware of the guard’s eyes upon them.
“It was a pleasant enough diversion, but I found the underlying message...” He paused to consider. “Somewhat odd.”
“Yes, I thought the same.” Lizzie placed the book in her satchel and took out another. “Would you prefer a collection of Shakespeare’s comedies?”
“That sounds like just the thing.” Mr. Ely managed a smile. “I must thank you again, Miss Van Lew, for your gifts and for your visits. The men and I think of you as a ministering angel.”
“Thank you, Congressman,” she replied, “but if you had spent any time in Richmond at all, you’d realize that is not an opinion commonly held.”
For the rest of the afternoon, the book remained tucked away in the satchel on the floor of the infirmary, where Lizzie needed all her strength of will to refrain from glancing at it. She was eager to see if Mr. Ely had hidden a letter within its pages, but she dared not check while under the watchful eye of the guard. Instead she waited until she was safely home and Mary had retired for the night before hurrying off to the library with the satchel, John and Mother at her heels.
Once there, she shut the door and quickly flipped through the book for a scrap of folded paper, but found nothing. She turned the pages more slowly, but there no letter to be found, nor had Mr. Ely written anything faintly in the margins or between the lines. She held the book by the spine, the pages facing downward, and gave it a few vigorous shakes, but nothing fluttered to the floor. Perplexed, she handed the book to her mother and sat down. “Apparently he misunderstood me,” she said. “Or I misunderstood him.”
Mother sat in her own chair, examining the book and running her fingertips over the printed lines. “Or Mr. Ely is more clever than you thought.”
“An encoded message?” asked John, leaning over the back of her chair for a better look.
“I believe so, or something like it. Here.” Mother held up the open book to him. “Touch the paper, gently.”
John ran his fingers lightly over the page. “I feel bumps of some sort—no, indentations.”
Suddenly Lizzie remembered Mr. Ely’s words. “Is that an odd-numbered page?”
John glanced to the upper right corner and held the book out to her. “Page fifteen, as it happens.”
“He said he found the book’s underlying message odd.” Lizzie bounded out of her chair, took the book from her brother, and traced the printed lines slowly with a fingertip. “He has indented particular letters by pressing upon them with a pin, or perhaps a sliver of wood.” Quickly she ran a hand over page seventeen, and then nineteen, and twenty-one—each exhibited an invisible pattern of bumps and indentations.
“John,” she said breathlessly, opening the book to page one, “get pen and paper.”
Quickly he seated himself at their father’s desk, procured pen and ink and paper, and as Lizzie ran her finger over the lines and called out the indented letters, he wrote them down. Before long, they realized that they were compiling a list of names, ranks, and regiments.
Congressman Ely had concealed a roster of all the Union prisoners at the Liggon complex within the book. But that was not all. After the names—forty officers and nine hundred enlisted men—followed a letter to President Abraham Lincoln briefly describing the harsh conditions within the prison and imploring him to do all he could to seek the men’s release.
“I’ll write it over in a better hand,” John vowed, “and send it off to Washington City without delay.”
“Peter can take the letter in the wagon past the pickets to the farm and give it to Mr. and Mrs. Whitehall,” said Mother. “Our kind neighbors will see it safely on its way.” She turned to Lizzie. “That was very dangerous, daughter. If you had been caught, Mr. Ely would have been severely punished, I’m sure. As for you, at the very least, you would have been banned from visiting the prison.”
“Yes, Mother,” said Lizzie. “Of course you’re right.”
“Mind you, I’m not asking you to stop.” Mother managed a small, anxious smile. “But I will ask you to be as careful as you can.”
Soberly, Lizzie nodded. They all knew there would be more messages, and they could not refuse to deliver them.
Lizzie, her mother, and Eliza could not visit the prison every day, but they went as often as they could. Despite their sweet words and delicious gifts, Lieutenant Todd seemed to grow more suspicious day by day. He insisted upon inspecting the baskets they carried to and from the prison, often helping himself to the delicacies they carried, and he restricted the duration of their visits arbitrarily and without warning. As the days passed, Lizzie smuggled out several other coded notes from Congressman Ely, transcribed the letters, and sped them along, but although the lieutenant flipped through the books, he never detected their hidden messages.
But Lieutenant Todd watched them carefully, and he was not alone. The skinny fellow with the tobacco-stained beard often followed them to and from the prison, hanging back a block and strolling on the opposite side of the street. Mary complained that the ladies of the Church Hill sewing circle often called upon her to explain her mother- and sister-in-law’s strange behavior, which Mary could not do, because she did not understand their compulsion to nurse Yankees either. And then, one morning, Lizzie learned from an acerbic reporter for the Examiner that their infamy had spread beyond their own neighborhood:
&nbs
p; SOUTHERN WOMEN WITH NORTHERN SYMPATHIES
Two ladies, mother and daughter, living on Church Hill, have lately attracted public notice by their assiduous attentions to the Yankee prisoners confined in this city. Whilst every true woman in this community has been busy making articles of comfort or necessity for our troops, or administering to the wants of the many hundreds of sick, who, far from their homes, which they left to defend our soil, are fit subjects for our sympathy, these two women have been expending their opulent means in aiding and giving comfort to the miscreants who have invaded our sacred soil, bent on rapine and murder, the desolation of our homes and sacred places, and the ruin and dishonour of our families.
Out upon all pretexts of humanity! The largest human charity can find ample scope in kindness and attention to our own poor fellows who have been stricken down while battling for our country and our rights. The Yankee wounded have been put under charge of competent surgeons and provided with good nurses. This is more than they deserve and have any right to expect, and the course of these two females, in providing them with delicacies, buying them books, stationery and papers, cannot but be regarded as an evidence of sympathy amounting to an endorsation of the cause and conduct of these Northern Vandals.
“At least they didn’t mention us by name,” Lizzie remarked as she set the paper aside. Seated beside her on the back piazza, Mother made no reply but only gazed out upon the gardens, silent and pale.
“They didn’t need to,” said John, visibly shaken. He rose and began to pace along the piazza.
“Eliza escaped their notice entirely,” Lizzie added.
John was not pacified by her attempt to point out the bright side. “Sister, you know I would never find fault with anything your conscience compels you to do, but you must be more discreet.”
“I know.” Lizzie knotted her fingers together in her lap. “I know.” She inhaled deeply. “Please don’t ask me to stop helping the Union prisoners, because I won’t. I can’t.”
John strangled out a laugh. “I know you too well to even suggest it.”
“Of course we won’t abandon our sacred duty,” said Mother. “I dislike being scolded in the newspaper, but I won’t let it frighten me into cowering at home when those poor, suffering men need us so desperately. What would Aunt Letitia have done in our place?”
Letitia Smith—the sister of Hilary Baker, Mother’s father—was revered in family lore as a true heroine of the Revolutionary War, having devoted herself to the welfare of prisoners held by the British when they occupied New York.
“She would be working right alongside us,” said Lizzie stoutly. “Or more likely, she would be leading the way.”
“Your work is noble, as was hers,” said John. “But it is dangerous, and it puts this entire household in peril.”
Lizzie nodded, acknowledging the truth of his words, but she could not apologize, nor could she promise to visit the prisoners less frequently.
Two days later, as the family was finishing supper, John reached for Mary’s hand, held her gaze for a moment, and waited for her to smile before clearing his throat and saying, “Mary and I have news.”
Fond gestures between the two were so rare that Lizzie, startled, set down her fork with a clatter. “News?” she echoed weakly.
“Oh, my gracious,” said Mother. “Mary, my dear, are you expecting a child?”
Mary’s eyebrows rose. “No,” she said so emphatically that Lizzie understood that a third child was extremely unlikely, and perhaps a practical impossibility. “John, you explain.”
“I’ve taken a house west of the Capitol,” said John, his smile fixed, his gaze begging for Mother and Lizzie to understand. “It’s on Canal Street between Second and Third.”
“What?” Lizzie exclaimed, as Mother gasped. “John, you and the girls, you’re...leaving?”
“We thought it was time we had a home of our own.”
“Long past time,” Mary chimed in.
“But, John,” Mother said, “to go to such expense and trouble, when we have so many rooms—”
“How were you even able to find a place?” asked Lizzie, puzzled and hurt. “Everyone says there aren’t any homes to be had.”
John’s smile turned into a grimace. “There aren’t any reasonably priced homes to be had.”
“An important distinction to be sure,” said Lizzie tightly. She couldn’t look at Mary. She was to blame for this disruption of the household. Lizzie’s heart constricted as she imagined waving good-bye to her dear little nieces as a carriage took them away, their empty chairs at the breakfast table, her own empty arms.
“There’s a nice garden for the girls to play in,” John said, “and it’s a far more convenient walk to the hardware store.”
“We have a lovely garden here,” said Lizzie, “and your walk is not so bad now.”
“It’s done, so there’s no use trying to talk us out of it,” said Mary cheerfully. “The papers are signed, and we can move in on Thursday.”
“Why did you not say anything earlier,” said Mother, stricken, “so that we could have tried to dissuade you before it was too late?”
When John made no reply, Lizzie realized that was precisely why he had not mentioned it earlier.
Though close to tears, she kept her composure as best she could, unwilling to spoil one of her last precious evenings with Annie and little Eliza. It was only later, after she had tucked them in and kissed them good night, that she caught John alone. “Why?” she choked out, trying not to weep.
He offered a wan smile. “I would have thought you’d be glad to be rid of my wife’s company.”
“That’s not funny, and it’s not fair.” Her voice broke, and she reached out and clutched his arm beseechingly. “You know how much I adore those little girls. They’re the daughters I’ll never have. This is the only home they’ve ever known. How can you take them away?”
“Lizzie, I must.” He held her by the shoulders, and she recognized the pain in his eyes. “I admire what you’re doing for the prisoners, but you have only yourself to think about. You chose to put yourself in danger, but you can’t make that choice on behalf of my daughters.”
“I never meant to.”
“I know that, but it’s happened, and now it falls to me to protect the girls from the consequences.” John released her, sighed, and raked a hand through his hair. “I also want to protect you and Mother. You think Mary is a simple, foolish girl, but she’s shrewd and observant, and despite my warnings, she gossips. You and Mother will be safer if she doesn’t have any new stories to share about your...activities.”
Lizzie wanted to protest that she could avert Mary’s suspicions and that the safest place for her nieces was their home on Church Hill, but a seed of doubt had been planted in the back of her mind, and it quickly took root. What if, God forbid, something should happen to the girls because of her? Suddenly she remembered the torchlight parade after fighting had broken out in Baltimore; she remembered the red-faced man who had stopped to shake his fist at her and shout, “That fine house of yours can burn!”
Her protests deserted her. Heartsick and afraid, she nodded, clung to her brother, and wept.
Chapter Seven
* * *
AUGUST-SEPTEMBER
M
ary, cheerful and bustling, had her little family ready to move out of the Church Hill mansion within three days. Numbly, Lizzie offered to help her pack, but her heart was not in the work, and Mary often chided her for mixing up the girls’ clothes or not wrapping delicate items carefully enough before tucking them into boxes. When Mother suggested that Lizzie help by playing with her nieces instead, she was all too grateful to accept. Annie was downcast but did not complain or lament, and little Eliza seemed to think that she and her Mama and Papa were going away for only a little while—an afternoon, perhaps, or a day. Lizzie’s throat constric
ted whenever a chance arose to correct Eliza’s innocent misunderstanding. She finally gave up and decided to leave it to John and Mary to explain. Although Lizzie understood her brother’s good intentions, she was not convinced that the children would be safer away from Church Hill.
“Perhaps this move will be good for John and Mary,” Mother said to Lizzie when they were alone. “Perhaps when she is no longer standing in your shadow, Mary will blossom as a wife.”
Lizzie was so astonished she laughed. “I, a bookish spinster of almost forty-three, cast a shadow over Mary Carter West Van Lew of the prosperous Virginia Carters, married to a successful businessman and devoted mother of two beautiful daughters?”
Mother regarded her curiously, her brow slightly furrowed. “Yes, Lizzie, you. John defers to you, and you know it.”
“He defers to you too, because he knows we offer him sensible advice.”
“Perhaps Mary wishes he would seek her counsel instead. Perhaps when we aren’t around, he will.”
Lizzie supposed Mother made a fair point, but Mary’s insecurity and jealousy seemed to her an irrational impetus to take up residence elsewhere.
It was Mother’s idea for Hannah to accompany them. “It will be easier for the girls to settle into an unfamiliar place if they have their beloved nurse there,” she explained, first to Lizzie, and then to Hannah, who thought it over for a moment before thanking them for offering her the choice.
“Of course you have a choice,” said Lizzie, surprised. “We would never send you off somewhere you didn’t want to go.”
Hannah regarded her skeptically. “Miss Lizzie, you forget I’m a slave.”
“You apparently forget that’s only because a legal technicality renders us powerless to free you. You know the restrictions imposed upon Mother by my father’s will.”
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