The Last, Long Night

by Ginny Dye

  Louisa was determined to not be afraid. They had been through so much already; surely the birth of a new baby was not something to panic over. Mothers birthed new life every day. She had calm confidence that after all they had been through their baby’s birth was going to be easy and smooth.

  The fire sputtered and crackled as she allowed her thoughts to travel back to Blackwell Plantation. She imagined giving birth in the sumptuous room she had grown up in, surrounded by slaves eager to do her bidding. As she stared around the simple cabin and felt its quiet solitude, she discovered she would much rather have it this way.

  She smiled happily as she continued to stroke her belly. “Baby, you’re about to enter into a world of love.” Louisa frowned as she thought of the war raging through the country. “Oh, the country does not feel a lot of love right now, but your mama and daddy will love you with all their hearts. This crazy war will end, and you will have this home with your daddy and me, little one.”

  Praying she was speaking the truth, she stared out at the deepening snow and fought to remain calm as another spasm, stronger than all the others, stole her breath. “One of these days I’ll tell you how you were born in a fierce Georgia snowstorm that kept your daddy from coming right back with the midwife. I’ll tell you how it was just you and me; with my knowing I would go through anything to hold you in my arms.”

  Louisa fought harder to remain calm as the spasms came faster and stronger - like the snow creating a white curtain outside the window. She could imagine Perry’s panic about leaving her alone for so long. She had to face the possibility snow might have made roads impassable and that she was on her own.

  “Well, little one, what will we do if your daddy doesn’t make it back in time?” She managed to keep her voice calm, and reasoned that if she didn’t impart fear to her baby that everything would be easier. She didn’t know if it mattered, but fighting to remain calm was better than giving in to absolute panic, which was exactly what her mind was screaming to do.

  Louisa stood unsteadily, realizing that if Perry didn’t make it back in time, she would be much better off in bed. She staggered across the room, holding on to the wall, and then collapsed onto their bed, realizing too late she should have put strips of cloth on to boil, though what she would do with them, even if she could reach them, she had no idea.

  “Oh!” This time she couldn’t hold back her scream of pain as a spasm ripped through her. “Perry…,” she whispered as the door burst open.

  “Louisa!” Perry cried, rushing to her side. “A tree was down over the road…”

  “You can tell her the story later,” Polly said, her voice a study of calm and competence. “I told you what I would need. I suggest you get it.”

  Perry sprang to follow the midwife’s instructions; stoked the fire into roaring flames, and poured water into a kettle that he hung over the fire.

  Louisa turned her face to the warmth radiating through the cabin and felt her fear ebb away. Everything would be okay now.

  Polly smiled down gently at Louisa. “Sorry you had to be on your own for so long,” she said easily. “Let’s take a look.”

  Relieved beyond description that she wouldn’t have to have their baby on her own, Louisa took several deep breaths. “I do believe this little one is about ready.”

  Polly looked up moments later. “I do believe you’re right,” she said, only her eyes showing anxiety. “I reckon we got here in time.”

  “Polly? What can I do?”

  Polly turned to Perry. “Give me those rags and blankets, and go settle down in the corner. Usually I would send you outside, but I believe you’ve had enough time out in that snow.”

  Polly kept up a steady stream of soothing conversation, her hands moving quickly as she positioned Louisa.

  Louisa had no idea what Polly was saying because she was lost in a haze of unrelenting pain, but the sound of her voice gave Louisa something to anchor herself with. “Oh…!” she gasped, as a contraction harder than any yet, seemed to almost rip her in half.

  “It’s time,” Polly said. “When I tell you to, I want you to push harder than you ever have in your life, Louisa.” She waited a few seconds and then said, “Now!”

  Louisa screamed, pushed until she was sure she would pass out, and then fell back against the pillows, limp with exhaustion and vaguely aware of Perry’s horrified face. She was also aware of an immediate relief.

  Moments later a strident cry filled the cabin. Wonder filled Louisa as she looked at Polly’s face and then at the newborn she held. She watched in silence as Polly cut the umbilical cord and gently washed her baby with warm water.

  Polly finally turned to them. “Mr. and Mrs. Appleton, I would like to introduce you to your little boy.”

  Louisa stared with awe. “Nathan Perry Appleton,” she said softly, her eyes filling with tears as she reached for the tiny bundle Polly had swaddled in soft cloths. “He’s named after my brother.”

  Perry stood to the side. “Can I come over?” he asked nervously.

  Polly nodded. “Come meet your son, and kiss your wife for being such a brave woman.” She stared hard at Louisa. “You almost had that baby on your own. From what I’d heard, you come from a fancy plantation up north in Virginia. I figured you would be soft and spoiled, and that you would be a screaming, nervous wreck when we got here. I reckon I was wrong.”

  Louisa laughed softly. “I was all those things back then,” she admitted, “and if I’d thought being a screaming, nervous wreck would have helped, I might have been tempted. Thankfully, I knew it wouldn’t.” She looked over at Perry with a warm smile. “The war changed me.”

  “It’s changed us all,” Polly agreed and then smiled down at Nathan. “But I figure as long as babies keep coming that it’s God’s message to us that he hasn’t given up on the world yet.”

  Louisa looked up at her, and then gazed tenderly at Nathan. “That’s what I think, too. It gives me hope for all of us.”

  Abby brushed the snow off her coat and hat before she opened the door to her home and moved gratefully into the warmth, thankful she had someone to come in and stoke the furnace during these frigid days. She’d stayed an extra week in Virginia at Fort Monroe with Rose. It had been unusually cold in Virginia, but not this bone aching freeze that had wrapped its tentacles around Philadelphia. Three weeks back at home had her longing to be somewhere warm.

  “Maybe I’m getting too old for these winters,” she muttered, thinking of the trip she had taken to St. Simons Island, Georgia, several years earlier in the middle of winter. She rubbed her hands over the radiator as she visualized the sunny beaches and moss-draped live oaks that lined the winding roads. She frowned when she realized that whole area was part of Sherman’s devastating march. It made her sick to think of the glorious plantations destroyed and burned.

  She sank down into her rose-colored wingback chair and turned up the oil lantern, shuddering as warmth seeped back into her body. She could feel the wind slapping against the windows, icy pellets hammering for entrance. Needing time to relax before she prepared dinner, Abby closed her eyes for a moment. Sometimes, she thought herself silly not to hire a house servant, but she valued her independence and self-reliance too much. Still, after a long day of work, it would have been nice to come home to a hot meal.

  “Quit feeling sorry for yourself,” she scolded. She thought of the many women she had hired lately who were going home to dark hovels they couldn’t afford to heat. With thoughts like that, it didn’t take long for Abby to put things back in perspective.

  A loud knock brought a tired scowl to her face. She briefly considered not answering, but couldn’t imagine leaving someone outside on a night like this. She got to her feet tiredly and moved to the door. She fixed a smile on her face before she opened the door, only to have it burst back as a small group of people pushed past her and then slammed the door closed again.

  “We did it, Abby!” John Stone crowed as soon as the howling wind was shut off.
/>
  Forcing numb fatigue from her mind, Abby blinked her eyes at the ten friends who had descended on her house.

  “Surely you know what today is,” a portly woman cried, removing her own coat and hat.

  Abby shook her head. “I’m sorry, Catherine,” she said contritely. “It’s been an extremely long day.” Then slowly the fog lifted. She realized only one thing could put the look of absolute delight on these people’s faces. She struggled to bring the calendar to the front of her mind and then gasped. “It’s January thirty-first!”

  “More importantly,” John said solemnly, drawing himself to his full height as he deepened his voice dramatically, “this is the day the amendment to abolish slavery passed.”

  Fatigue fled as Abby stared at him, and then a wide smile split her face. “It passed? It really passed? Slavery has been abolished in the United States?” Joy pulsed through her, sparking energy where there had been nothing but exhaustion.

  Suddenly everyone in the room was laughing and talking at once.

  Abby absorbed it all and then threw back her head with a hearty laugh. “We must celebrate!” Then she sank down in her chair. “But first, you must tell me everything. I can’t believe I forgot what today was.”

  “Especially after you have worked so long and hard for it,” Catherine commented.

  “As we all did,” Abby responded and then looked at John.

  “You’re forgiven for forgetting,” John replied, “since you are solely responsible for putting more women and blacks to work in this city than any other employer.” He moved over and sat down next to her. “You must be exhausted.”

  “Not anymore,” Abby assured him with a brilliant smile. The dream she had worked for so hard and for so long was finally a reality. Lincoln had been moving to it all along, though she was quite sure he hadn’t known it. When the war began, he had endorsed a statement of war aims saying slavery was not to be touched. When he created the Emancipation Proclamation, he had done it hesitantly; more for political reasons than anything else, but each step had taken him closer to an understanding of the real issue.

  After his re-election, Lincoln had believed the time to strike off all the chains had come, and knew an amendment was the only way to do it. Abby shook her head in amazement. “Only four years ago President Lincoln accepted a proposed amendment specifying that the Constitution could never, in all time, be changed in such a way as to permit interference with the institution of slavery.”

  “Thank God it never went through and passed,” Catherine said fervently.

  Abby nodded and then looked at John. “Tell me everything about it!”

  “You know there has been so much argument in the House about this issue. Getting it through the Senate was easy, but getting it through the House was always the issue.”

  Abby nodded. “Wasn’t Fernando Wood, the Democrat from New York, going to speak?”

  “Oh, he spoke,” John said with a scowl. “In fact, I wrote it all down because I fear what it will mean for the future.”

  Abby watched him while he dug in his pocket for the piece of paper and then smoothed it out enough to read.

  “We may amend the constitution; we may by superior military force overrun and conquer the South; we may lay waste their lands and destroy their property; we may free their slaves. But there is one thing we cannot do: we cannot violate with impunity or alter the laws of God. The Almighty has fixed the distinction of the races; the Almighty has made the black man inferior, and sir, by no legislation, no partisan success, by no revolution, by no military power, can you wipe out this distinction. You may make the black man free, but when you have done that what have you done?”

  Silence gripped the room as the icy pellets increased their pounding noise.

  “When all was said and done,” John said, “the amendment passed the House by 119 votes to 56. Pandemonium broke out.”

  Abby nodded. “Yes, of course, it would,” she murmured, still gripped by the words spoken by Fernando Wood.

  John read her mind. “It feels like the ending of a huge fight, and in some respects it is, but it is the beginning of a much larger struggle.”

  Abby nodded, appreciating that he shared her thoughts. “One, I fear, that will go on for generations,” she said in a troubled voice. “So many people feel the way Wood does, both North and South.” She carried vivid memories of the spirited intelligence shining in the eyes of her friends in the contraband camp. Snatches of in-depth conversations she’d had with Rose about educational opportunities for blacks filled her mind. “What will it take to show people that slaves are just like us? They will rise to the occasion and will become so much more than they’d envisioned for themselves when given the opportunity.”

  “I agree we still have a huge battle ahead of us,” Catherine said, “but I also recognize we have won a huge victory that many people have worked hard for. I, for one, would love to celebrate that. Tomorrow, along with the battles it brings, will come soon enough.”

  Abby shook off her thoughts and jumped up. “Of course, you’re right!” she exclaimed. “I had a friend bring by two cakes yesterday. I had no idea what I would do with them. Now I know.” She moved toward the kitchen. “I’ll fix some coffee, and we’ll have a victory party!”

  Moses looked up from his huddled position next to the fire when a messenger stopped beside him. “Captain Jones wants you in his tent,” the man snapped, before he moved on, obviously eager to find his own source of warmth.

  Moses nodded, wrapped his coat more tightly, and stepped away from the fire. He glanced over at the Rebel trenches and realized that as miserable as he was, the Southern boys had it much worse. At least Moses and his men had log structures in the trenches to build fires in. They also had food and clothing. He could hear the hacking coughs coming from the other side that told him how sick those men must be. Watching them during the day and seeing them in battle, Moses knew most of the Rebel soldiers had hardly any clothes, and he knew their food supplies must be scarce. He could want to win the war but still feel sorry for the ones about to lose.

  “You sent for me, Captain?”

  Bundled warmly against the cold, Captain Jones looked up from the table he sat at in his tent. “Yes. Have a seat, Moses. I’ll only be a minute.”

  Moses settled into a chair and relaxed in the relative warmth of the tent - not that any place could be warm when it was this frigid. He watched as the captain finished reviewing some papers, pushed them aside, and then looked up with a smile.

  “You and your men have some celebrating to do tonight,” he said lightly.

  “What are we celebrating?”

  “Well…”

  Moses watched as the captain drew out his word, obviously wanting to play up the moment. Moses had no idea… Suddenly, his eyes grew wide, and he leaned forward in his chair with anticipation. Cold misery had almost made him forget what day it was.

  Captain Jones chuckled and nodded his head. “Yes. The amendment to abolish slavery passed.”

  Moses took a deep breath and settled back, letting the import of the words sink into his heart and mind.

  “It’s men like you and your soldiers that helped make this happen,” Captain Jones said seriously. “The argument for slavery that said blacks couldn’t take care of themselves and were less intelligent than white men was shot down in flames when your people became great soldiers.”

  Moses gazed at him. “I hoped it would be,” he murmured, almost overwhelmed with the emotion sweeping through him.

  “Lincoln figures the amendment will help us win the war sooner,” Captain Jones said, “because abolishing slavery will make the South realize it is useless to prolong a losing fight in the hope of winning some slavery-saving concession, but we’ve made too many military gains for that to matter much now.”

  “It’s just a matter of time until the war ends,” Moses agreed. “I believe the passage of the amendment was more about the future,” he added thoughtfully.

  “
How do you figure that?”

  “We’re winning the war, anyway,” Moses answered. “The amendment is more a consequence of our victory, rather than a probable cause of it.” He chose his words carefully; he had thought of little else for the last few weeks. “To kill slavery now is to prepare to step out of the war and enter the future. I don’t figure the amendment will exactly define the future, but it for sure is saying the future for my people will totally be unlike the past.”

  Captain Jones nodded solemnly. “It’s past time for this to have happened. The question for our country will soon be, having won this victory what will we do with it?”

  “It’s a big question,” Moses said calmly. “The answer to it won’t be much easier than the fight to have the right to answer it.”

  “You don’t sound too disturbed by that.” Captain Jones stared at him intensely.

  Moses shrugged. “Being disturbed isn’t productive. Oh, I certainly have my feelings about everything that has happened to my people, and I’ll do everything I can to help change things, but I already know it will take time. Knowing that, I can deal with frustration when things don’t happen overnight.”

  Captain Jones settled back in his chair. “You’re a natural leader, Moses.”

  Moses nodded. “I believe I am. Sometimes I’m glad about that; sometimes it’s nothing but a burden, but the way I feel about it doesn’t change what is. I hope I can be the kind of leader required– not just for my people - but for white people, too. How they see me will influence how white people see everyone with black skin.”

  “That’s rather a heavy burden.”

  “Not any heavier than the one you’ve carried through this war,” Moses observed, “especially when you asked to lead black regiments, Captain. I know plenty of soldiers have given you a hard time about that.” They had never talked about this, but the intimacy of the tent enclosed by howling winter winds offered the opportunity.